This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 27, 2009, the 1st Sunday After Christmas.
1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
Psalm 148
Colossians 3:12-17
Luke 2:41-52
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
For me, it has become impossible to read today’s gospel reading without thinking about the movie “Home Alone,” the 1990 comedy starring Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an eight-year-old who is mistakenly left behind when his family flies to France for Christmas vacation. This notion is seemingly inspired by this tale from Luke’s gospel.
In the movie, as the McCallister family hurries into a shuttle waiting to take them to the airport, an annoying neighbor child piles in with the McCallister’s spouting on about his family’s vacation plans.[1] When it comes time for mom, Kate McCallister, to count heads in the van, she mistakenly counts the neighbor child as one of her own. On the plane the parents are sitting in first class and the kids in coach, so this mistake is not caught until well after the family is in the air.
Whoops, Kevin is home alone in Chicago and the family is on the way to Paris.
Jesus shares a similar situation as his family leaves Jerusalem to return home after the festival ended. As the clan leaves, while there is apparently no head count, presumably each parent thinks the young Jesus is with the other. While there is no annoying neighbor child in a knit cap being mistaken for Jesus, I can imagine the scene of the family setting up camp after a full day of travel when Mary and Joseph look at each other and say, “I thought he was with you!”
Whoops, Jesus is alone in Jerusalem and the family is on the way home to Nazareth.
If you are going to lift plot lines, you ought to take from the best.
In the movie, Mom’s trip from Paris to Chicago takes several days. Mary and Joseph return to Jerusalem taking two travel days, one out and one back, before they are in the same zip code as their son. Then they spend three days in Jerusalem before finding Jesus. This is a total of five days on the road and in town looking for a twelve year old who his parents fear is all alone in a major city after a major festival. Imagine losing a twelve year old at Times Square on New Years Eve or worse, in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, that would be close to the level of terror Mary and Joseph experienced every moment they were looking for Jesus.
They finally find him in the temple. And when Mary and Joseph arrive, they were in shock. He is not alone; he is with the teachers of the law where all who heard him were amazed at his understanding; his questions and his answers. When his parents find him, is Jesus received with relief? Well, of a sort. “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” Does this sound familiar to any parents here this morning? He is received with relief overwhelmed by a scolding.
If I am not mistaken, Kevin got the same reaction from his Mom when she finally found him home alone and safe.
While the differences are many, there is one very significant difference between little Kevin McAllister and Jesus of Nazareth that I want to make clear. Kevin was at home at the family manse in Chicago. Scripture doesn’t place Jesus’ residence at the homestead in Nazareth. No, according to verse 49 Jesus is at home in the Jerusalem temple.
Being found after three days of searching, and two more days of travel, Jesus asks “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Jesus asks this question as if there should be no question about where he would be or where he should be. He was at home in the temple, of course. It is as if he asks Mary and Joseph and the world “Where else would you expect to find me?”
Where do we expect to find Jesus? Looking for Jesus, looking for God; is our holy journey. Jesus is found in body and in spirit, in praise and in worship, in word and in work; and as is obvious by our reading, Jesus is found in the temple. Jesus is found where He is worshipped. For us, for Christians, the church is where we look to find the Lord Jesus.
Jesus is found in the Word written and proclaimed. Jesus who inhabits all scripture is found in our Call to Worship. Jesus is found as we “Praise the Lord from the earth… young men and women, old and young together. Let us praise the name of the Lord.”[2]
Jesus is found in our proclamation. We say that Jesus is Lord, he is sovereign. In words more familiar to us, Jesus is in charge; all power and authority are his now and forevermore.
We say that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. We say that he is fully divine and we say that we are not. We say that he is fully human and we say that in the fullness of his perfection he is more human than we will ever be.
We say that he is God and he is the Son of God. He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty from where he will come to judge the living and the dead.
We look for Jesus in the visible signs of God’s invisible Grace. We look for Jesus in the mystery of the sacraments.
In the waters of our baptism, we are covered in the newness of life. The world of our old life is washed away. When washed, we are fully reconciled to Christ. We are free to fully trust that we belong to God. Dressed in the robe of Christ, we are to free our minds and hearts, bodies and souls to be truly free in this world, free to be ministers of His reconciliation. Only in this sacramental relationship can this happen, otherwise we fall back into our self doubt and self rejection.[3]
Nourished by the Lord’s Supper, we are fed the bread of life and the cup of salvation. We rest in the promise that it is Christ who comes to the door and knocks. He calls us and if we hear and invite him in then we will eat with him, and he with us. We invite no one to this table; we give thanks that Jesus invites us to come, taste, and see that the Lord is good. We remember that in these gracious acts of Jesus Christ, we take the bread and the cup and joyfully celebrate his dying and rising as we await the day of his coming in victory.[4]
As much as we are called to look for Christ in the church, by the Word and sacraments we are called to take Christ into the world. It is important to remember that the world looks at us while looking for Jesus. It is in wearing the clothes of Christ that we become the body of the Lord in the world.
Colossians provides us with the most excellent way to wear the clothes of Christ, to become the body of Christ in the world. We are to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. We are to bear with one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, we are to forgive one other; just as the Lord has forgiven us we too must forgive.
Above all, we are to clothe ourselves with love that binds everything together in perfect harmony. Letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, we are called in the one body. And we must be thankful letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly; teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. With gratitude in our hearts, we are called to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever we do, in word or deed, we do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
This is the time when we begin to make New Year’s Resolutions. We must resolve to improve our relationship with one another and with the Lord God Almighty. We begin with remembering our baptism into the body of Christ. We are to be clothed as Samuel was in this robe of white, this robe representing our membership with the baptized wearing this robe as Jesus wore his; as Jesus wears his faith in the water of his baptism.
We are nourished in his faith by the bread and cup of the Lord’s Supper. By this meal we become empowered through the Spirit of the Lord to be Christ’s presence in the world. Nourished in this sacrament, as Jesus is God with us, we are called to be the hands and feet of God with the world.
I am not saying that we will become Jesus, but our call, our vocation, is to become more Christ-like. And this is a noble and worthy goal. It is truly the only one that matters. It is how we participate in Christ’s work of reconciliation.
Let us look for Jesus here in the church, and then go taking Jesus out of the sanctuary and into the world for those who also seek him.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Alone, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099785/ accessed December 31, 2006.
[2] From the 148th Psalm, paraphrased from the Presbyterian Book of Worship.
[3] Nouwen, Henri, Bread for the Journey, A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, December 26 entry.
[4] Christmas Communion Setting, paraphrased from the Presbyterian Book of Worship.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Mary Treasured All These Things
This sermon would have been heard on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2009 had it not been for inclement weather.
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I have found it difficult to find an appropriate message for this evening. By itself, that’s no different than any other message. Often I wrestle with the sermon, and occasionally I lose the struggle. But Christmas Eve should be different—it’s one of our highest, holiest days. This is an important service. This is such a visually rich passage that I ought to have lots to say. We ought to have lots to say about this evening, the eve of our dear Savior’s birth.
We are met first with the people of power, the people who can tell others what to do. These are the folks who say “jump” while the rest of the world cries back “how high?” Roman Emperor Augustus and Syrian Governor Quirinius tell the world to jump. Joseph and his fiancée Mary jump to Nazareth. Just to make matters worse for their journey, the babe in her womb was responding to the call to jump in his own way; he was making his own commotion from within Mary.
Then we reach the seventh verse of this chapter, the verse that begins with Mary giving birth. Now, you can tell here that scripture was written and edited by men because this event is described with one word in the Greek New Testament and three in most English versions. She gave birth. You who have given birth can tell me with authority that this deserves more than just three words.
Then she swaddles the infant Jesus, placing him in the cold stone manger. We are used to thinking of the stable and manger in the way we think of western livestock, but this is not true of that time and place. The stable was most likely a cave, and the manger a carved out hollow in the rock. No matter how uncomfortable we might think our common manger scene is; being swaddled and laid on cold stone raises the ante significantly.
We begin our reading with Augustus, imagining his fine palace in Rome, with a whim causing the world to be counted. Now we have a newborn resting in a bed of stone, hewn out of the wall of a cave. These are the extremes we live in this evening.
We are then given the story of the young boys keeping watch over their flocks. These boys were the lowliest of their families. They were the youngest and given the most dangerous job in the field. They were to protect the herds and flocks from the wilds that surround them in the dark. It was just like any other cold desert night for the shepherds, until the angel of the Lord appeared with the glory of the Lord shining around them. Scripture tells us “They were terrified,” of course they were terrified!
And then, then they hear those famous words, “Fear not!” Just hearing those words from the heavenly host would frighten me even more. Then they receive the good news, the gospel of the Lord. Born this day in the City of David is the Messiah, the Lord. Then the host pipes up again singing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
So the shepherds go to see the Messiah. Scripture does not say whether they took their herds and flocks or not. I imagine they did. It would have been wrong for them to leave their flocks, their families’ livelihood, to the elements and the wild. So they went with haste, flocks in tow, and descended upon the manger scene.
Imagine the noise. Dozens of boys and hundreds of sheep coming into town like a circus train to see the Christ child. They shared the gift they had received from the angel, the good news of the Lord with Mary and Joseph with anyone who would listen. The story must have been told dozens of times, each time sharing the glory of the Lord found in a manger in a tiny Judean backwater.
This is our story, this is the first story we tell. This is the story of how God Almighty came to earth, not in power and glory and in victory; but as a helpless newborn child.
This is our story, not of God who comes to the seat of power, not to Augustus and Quirinius, but to shepherd boys and livestock.
The one who is fully human and fully divine, so like us and so completely different than us, God came to earth as a helpless babe.
God meets creation right where we are, meeting us just as we meet one another.
And one thing about this story sticks out for me from verse 19; Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. Mary treasured these things holding them in her heart, keeping the moment as it was, and as it would be, forever.
She treasured the words of the young shepherds, the shepherds who told her what the angel said about her son. She treasured the sight of her infant son, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a feed trough. She treasured these things from a cave in the trappings of abject poverty, not as a guest of the inn, nor as a privileged citizen of Rome.
She pondered these things too. She knew her son was the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, but to be told these things again by the shepherds must have been wonderful, and glorious, and frightening. She was told who her son is, and would be, and had no idea what shape these things would take. And she did this, looking at a fresh, new life.
Mary treasured these things. This strikes me because I feel the joy and the wonder of treasuring these things, and I hope you do too.
Ah, the things worth treasuring…
I treasure the moment.
I treasure this service this evening, with wonderful song, glorious lights, and wonderful friends.
I treasure the infant who lies in the stone manger, with the buzz of the shepherds, and the bleating of the sheep around us.
I treasure them here in rural Arkansas, not in the mansions of our world. I treasure these things, and ponder them in my heart.
I hope you have taken some time tonight to think about the things you treasure too. I hope you ponder them in your heart. We receive many wonderful gifts from the Lord our God and these gifts need to be treasured and pondered; especially the gift of a young infant, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a stone manger. Let us treasure these things and ponder them in our hearts, just like a young girl did once in the Nazareth.
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I have found it difficult to find an appropriate message for this evening. By itself, that’s no different than any other message. Often I wrestle with the sermon, and occasionally I lose the struggle. But Christmas Eve should be different—it’s one of our highest, holiest days. This is an important service. This is such a visually rich passage that I ought to have lots to say. We ought to have lots to say about this evening, the eve of our dear Savior’s birth.
We are met first with the people of power, the people who can tell others what to do. These are the folks who say “jump” while the rest of the world cries back “how high?” Roman Emperor Augustus and Syrian Governor Quirinius tell the world to jump. Joseph and his fiancée Mary jump to Nazareth. Just to make matters worse for their journey, the babe in her womb was responding to the call to jump in his own way; he was making his own commotion from within Mary.
Then we reach the seventh verse of this chapter, the verse that begins with Mary giving birth. Now, you can tell here that scripture was written and edited by men because this event is described with one word in the Greek New Testament and three in most English versions. She gave birth. You who have given birth can tell me with authority that this deserves more than just three words.
Then she swaddles the infant Jesus, placing him in the cold stone manger. We are used to thinking of the stable and manger in the way we think of western livestock, but this is not true of that time and place. The stable was most likely a cave, and the manger a carved out hollow in the rock. No matter how uncomfortable we might think our common manger scene is; being swaddled and laid on cold stone raises the ante significantly.
We begin our reading with Augustus, imagining his fine palace in Rome, with a whim causing the world to be counted. Now we have a newborn resting in a bed of stone, hewn out of the wall of a cave. These are the extremes we live in this evening.
We are then given the story of the young boys keeping watch over their flocks. These boys were the lowliest of their families. They were the youngest and given the most dangerous job in the field. They were to protect the herds and flocks from the wilds that surround them in the dark. It was just like any other cold desert night for the shepherds, until the angel of the Lord appeared with the glory of the Lord shining around them. Scripture tells us “They were terrified,” of course they were terrified!
And then, then they hear those famous words, “Fear not!” Just hearing those words from the heavenly host would frighten me even more. Then they receive the good news, the gospel of the Lord. Born this day in the City of David is the Messiah, the Lord. Then the host pipes up again singing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
So the shepherds go to see the Messiah. Scripture does not say whether they took their herds and flocks or not. I imagine they did. It would have been wrong for them to leave their flocks, their families’ livelihood, to the elements and the wild. So they went with haste, flocks in tow, and descended upon the manger scene.
Imagine the noise. Dozens of boys and hundreds of sheep coming into town like a circus train to see the Christ child. They shared the gift they had received from the angel, the good news of the Lord with Mary and Joseph with anyone who would listen. The story must have been told dozens of times, each time sharing the glory of the Lord found in a manger in a tiny Judean backwater.
This is our story, this is the first story we tell. This is the story of how God Almighty came to earth, not in power and glory and in victory; but as a helpless newborn child.
This is our story, not of God who comes to the seat of power, not to Augustus and Quirinius, but to shepherd boys and livestock.
The one who is fully human and fully divine, so like us and so completely different than us, God came to earth as a helpless babe.
God meets creation right where we are, meeting us just as we meet one another.
And one thing about this story sticks out for me from verse 19; Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. Mary treasured these things holding them in her heart, keeping the moment as it was, and as it would be, forever.
She treasured the words of the young shepherds, the shepherds who told her what the angel said about her son. She treasured the sight of her infant son, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a feed trough. She treasured these things from a cave in the trappings of abject poverty, not as a guest of the inn, nor as a privileged citizen of Rome.
She pondered these things too. She knew her son was the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, but to be told these things again by the shepherds must have been wonderful, and glorious, and frightening. She was told who her son is, and would be, and had no idea what shape these things would take. And she did this, looking at a fresh, new life.
Mary treasured these things. This strikes me because I feel the joy and the wonder of treasuring these things, and I hope you do too.
Ah, the things worth treasuring…
I treasure the moment.
I treasure this service this evening, with wonderful song, glorious lights, and wonderful friends.
I treasure the infant who lies in the stone manger, with the buzz of the shepherds, and the bleating of the sheep around us.
I treasure them here in rural Arkansas, not in the mansions of our world. I treasure these things, and ponder them in my heart.
I hope you have taken some time tonight to think about the things you treasure too. I hope you ponder them in your heart. We receive many wonderful gifts from the Lord our God and these gifts need to be treasured and pondered; especially the gift of a young infant, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a stone manger. Let us treasure these things and ponder them in our hearts, just like a young girl did once in the Nazareth.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Go
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 20, 2009, the 4th Sunday of Advent. This sermon completes the series "Ready, Set, Go."
Micah 5:2-5a
Psalm 80:1-7
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-46
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
As a boy of the suburbs, I have had very little experience with milk straight from the farm. I remember having farm fresh milk once or twice, but it has been a long, long time. What I remember is that there were a flood of flavors that I just can’t get from a half-gallon of 2% from Price Cutter. The farm fresh was just so rich; its flavors so distinct and so full I can imagine that I remember, even if most of that memory was created.
But, in a day and time when dairy farms are huge operations shipping milk off to plants for processing and distribution, it is impossible to keep that farm fresh flavor. In fact, it’s impossible because milk straight off of the farm will turn a lot faster than milk that has been pasteurized. Pasteurization slows microbial growth[1] keeping milk fresher longer.
Still, what is lost is that straight off of the farm freshness. Well, given a choice between pasteurized milk and a game of Russian roulette every time eat cereal, I’ll take pasteurized milk. It is a pity though; pasteurization makes everything so consistent that for me the taste of farm fresh milk is lost to a vague memory.
There is a tendency in our lives to look at scripture through pasteurized eyes too. We are so used to reading the gospel and hearing it interpreted that it tends to become pasteurized. This loss isn’t exclusive to church members; it is a tremendous danger for ministers too. We see the gospel through academic eyes, historical eyes, denominational eyes, and theological eyes; it can get to the point that the farm fresh nature of the Word of God becomes as lost to us as the taste of milk straight from the cow.
For example, this passage is utterly absurd. Through the way 2,000 years of interpretation has pasteurized this scene, we lose how scandalous it was then and still is. We are used to thinking of it as a wonderfully somber candle lit meeting between two women whose sons will change the world, but when we look at it with unpasteurized eyes; it’s absurd.
In the movie, Elizabeth and Mary should be played by members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus! I imagine Graham Chapman as Elizabeth and Eric Idle as Mary. I can also see a place for a Terry Gilliam cartoon depicting the extra-super utero conversation between Jesus and John.
Let’s take this absurdity even further using names from the news. Imagine if you will Elizabeth and Mary’s conversation in this setting: Imagine a couple of months before her due date, the oldest woman ever to give birth sitting down for coffee with her pregnant cousin, a seventh grader. That’s what’s going on in our gospel reading.
Looking to a modern equivalent, in 2007 Maria del Carmen Bousada became the oldest woman ever to give birth at the age of 66.[2] When her true age was revealed, and it was discovered that she lied to a California fertility clinic taking ten years off of her age so she would be eligible for invitro-fertilization, the firestorm rang in the news for a week. Given the modern American news cycle, a week is an eternity.
Consider the younger end of this equation, whether Sarah Palin’s daughter or Brittney Spears’ sister, these high school aged girls giving birth was fodder for pundits for weeks. Even though teen pregnancy no longer carries the stigma it once did, the press, both liberal and conservative, was making hay with these young women. Whether a family values issue or an issue of whose family, these scandals were the talk of the airwaves for ages.
Consider now that these girls are about five years older than Mary and I can imagine Bill O’Reilly having a seizure talking about this meeting between two women who should not be first time mothers.
We’re all used to seeing the visit of Elizabeth and Mary as a meeting of peers, and nothing could be further from the truth. We have become so used to this story that we now fail to appreciate how absurd it really is until we look at it in a setting that’s closer to home for us.
So now in the name of absurdity, I have invoked Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fox News, Pepper-Pots and Bill O’Reilly. Yes, I want us to get a firm grip on just how absurd this meeting really is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “No priest, no theologian stood at the manger of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of wonders: that God became human. Holy Theology arises from knees bent before the mystery of the divine child in the stable. Without the holy night, there is no theology.”[3] What is wonderful and glorious about our reading from Luke is that it gives us a preview of Bonhoeffer’s theology.
In our reading, when these absurdly pregnant women come together, their children recognize one another before their birth. These cousins come together to celebrate, or perhaps at their respective ages commiserate, their pregnancies only to discover that their unborn children are all ready partners in the greatest of all scriptural prophecies.
Elizabeth cries, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Elizabeth knows what is happening, her son knows what is happening; they are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.
Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary and her son too know what is happening and are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.
These women come together, glorifying God and testifying the faith, in Bonhoeffer’s words the theology. They testify to the persons and work of the Baptizer and the Christ at the dawn of their birth. Their testimony is bold and dynamic; it’s filled with life in the midst of scandal. It is nothing like the pasteurized readings I have heard, and on occasion have given.
This is a problem with our lives and our faith in the eyes of Bonhoeffer’s theology. So often our knees fail to bend before the mystery of the divine child in the stable; our faith becoming pasteurized so it won’t spoil. We must resist this.
We testify God was born of a woman. We testify God lived the life of a Palestinian Jew. We testify he performed miracles. We testify he was crucified, dead, and buried; and on the third day he rose again from the dead. We testify he ascended into heaven without a second death all so that we may have eternal life. This is scandalous, this is controversial, and this is absurd; and we believe-we have faith that this is true. We have faith this is the truth.
Over the past four Sundays, we have come along the path of the Advent, the coming of the Lord. Over these last three, we have been going through the “Ready, Set, Go” of preparing for Christmas. We have made straight the ways for the Lord. We have repented at the behest of John the Baptist. And today as we go, we need to go knowing that what we testify, what we are all called to share with the world is wonderful and glorious and scandalous and absurd.
Thomas Heagle testifies, “In the human experience of Jesus, God became available to us as the depth of human life. Thus, a Christian believes that the experience of ultimate meaning comes not from a leap out of the human condition, but a journey through its dark waters.”[4]
God comes to us in the depths of where we are. Too often, we have added layers of piety that bind the Holy Spirit into a straight jacket that takes God out of those dark waters. I become party to this straight jacket when worship becomes more pious than God’s own self. More than once, I have left inadequate the wonder and the glory that is two unlikely mothers bearing their even more unlikely children.
Let us go into those dark waters with the story we hear year round, the story of the fully human-fully divine God of all creation. Let us share his grace, his peace, and his mercy so that all of God’s children will be able to see our Lord at work in us and even more importantly beyond us. The Lord will not be contained by what we consider to be absurd or common sense. Let us take the unpasteurized God into the world, sharing God’s life with God’s creation.
[1] Pasteurization, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization, retrieved December 13, 2009
[2] Woolls, Daniel, “Oldest Woman to Give Birth Dies at 69.” boston.com, http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/07/16/oldest_woman_to_give_birth_dies_at_69/, retrieved December 13, 2009.
[3] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, “I Want to Live These Days with You. A Year of Daily Devotions.” Louisville, KY: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2005, page 363.
[4] Heagle, Thomas, “A Contemporary Meditation on Hope.” Chicago: Thomas Moore Press.
Micah 5:2-5a
Psalm 80:1-7
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-46
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
As a boy of the suburbs, I have had very little experience with milk straight from the farm. I remember having farm fresh milk once or twice, but it has been a long, long time. What I remember is that there were a flood of flavors that I just can’t get from a half-gallon of 2% from Price Cutter. The farm fresh was just so rich; its flavors so distinct and so full I can imagine that I remember, even if most of that memory was created.
But, in a day and time when dairy farms are huge operations shipping milk off to plants for processing and distribution, it is impossible to keep that farm fresh flavor. In fact, it’s impossible because milk straight off of the farm will turn a lot faster than milk that has been pasteurized. Pasteurization slows microbial growth[1] keeping milk fresher longer.
Still, what is lost is that straight off of the farm freshness. Well, given a choice between pasteurized milk and a game of Russian roulette every time eat cereal, I’ll take pasteurized milk. It is a pity though; pasteurization makes everything so consistent that for me the taste of farm fresh milk is lost to a vague memory.
There is a tendency in our lives to look at scripture through pasteurized eyes too. We are so used to reading the gospel and hearing it interpreted that it tends to become pasteurized. This loss isn’t exclusive to church members; it is a tremendous danger for ministers too. We see the gospel through academic eyes, historical eyes, denominational eyes, and theological eyes; it can get to the point that the farm fresh nature of the Word of God becomes as lost to us as the taste of milk straight from the cow.
For example, this passage is utterly absurd. Through the way 2,000 years of interpretation has pasteurized this scene, we lose how scandalous it was then and still is. We are used to thinking of it as a wonderfully somber candle lit meeting between two women whose sons will change the world, but when we look at it with unpasteurized eyes; it’s absurd.
In the movie, Elizabeth and Mary should be played by members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus! I imagine Graham Chapman as Elizabeth and Eric Idle as Mary. I can also see a place for a Terry Gilliam cartoon depicting the extra-super utero conversation between Jesus and John.
Let’s take this absurdity even further using names from the news. Imagine if you will Elizabeth and Mary’s conversation in this setting: Imagine a couple of months before her due date, the oldest woman ever to give birth sitting down for coffee with her pregnant cousin, a seventh grader. That’s what’s going on in our gospel reading.
Looking to a modern equivalent, in 2007 Maria del Carmen Bousada became the oldest woman ever to give birth at the age of 66.[2] When her true age was revealed, and it was discovered that she lied to a California fertility clinic taking ten years off of her age so she would be eligible for invitro-fertilization, the firestorm rang in the news for a week. Given the modern American news cycle, a week is an eternity.
Consider the younger end of this equation, whether Sarah Palin’s daughter or Brittney Spears’ sister, these high school aged girls giving birth was fodder for pundits for weeks. Even though teen pregnancy no longer carries the stigma it once did, the press, both liberal and conservative, was making hay with these young women. Whether a family values issue or an issue of whose family, these scandals were the talk of the airwaves for ages.
Consider now that these girls are about five years older than Mary and I can imagine Bill O’Reilly having a seizure talking about this meeting between two women who should not be first time mothers.
We’re all used to seeing the visit of Elizabeth and Mary as a meeting of peers, and nothing could be further from the truth. We have become so used to this story that we now fail to appreciate how absurd it really is until we look at it in a setting that’s closer to home for us.
So now in the name of absurdity, I have invoked Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fox News, Pepper-Pots and Bill O’Reilly. Yes, I want us to get a firm grip on just how absurd this meeting really is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “No priest, no theologian stood at the manger of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of wonders: that God became human. Holy Theology arises from knees bent before the mystery of the divine child in the stable. Without the holy night, there is no theology.”[3] What is wonderful and glorious about our reading from Luke is that it gives us a preview of Bonhoeffer’s theology.
In our reading, when these absurdly pregnant women come together, their children recognize one another before their birth. These cousins come together to celebrate, or perhaps at their respective ages commiserate, their pregnancies only to discover that their unborn children are all ready partners in the greatest of all scriptural prophecies.
Elizabeth cries, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Elizabeth knows what is happening, her son knows what is happening; they are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.
Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary and her son too know what is happening and are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.
These women come together, glorifying God and testifying the faith, in Bonhoeffer’s words the theology. They testify to the persons and work of the Baptizer and the Christ at the dawn of their birth. Their testimony is bold and dynamic; it’s filled with life in the midst of scandal. It is nothing like the pasteurized readings I have heard, and on occasion have given.
This is a problem with our lives and our faith in the eyes of Bonhoeffer’s theology. So often our knees fail to bend before the mystery of the divine child in the stable; our faith becoming pasteurized so it won’t spoil. We must resist this.
We testify God was born of a woman. We testify God lived the life of a Palestinian Jew. We testify he performed miracles. We testify he was crucified, dead, and buried; and on the third day he rose again from the dead. We testify he ascended into heaven without a second death all so that we may have eternal life. This is scandalous, this is controversial, and this is absurd; and we believe-we have faith that this is true. We have faith this is the truth.
Over the past four Sundays, we have come along the path of the Advent, the coming of the Lord. Over these last three, we have been going through the “Ready, Set, Go” of preparing for Christmas. We have made straight the ways for the Lord. We have repented at the behest of John the Baptist. And today as we go, we need to go knowing that what we testify, what we are all called to share with the world is wonderful and glorious and scandalous and absurd.
Thomas Heagle testifies, “In the human experience of Jesus, God became available to us as the depth of human life. Thus, a Christian believes that the experience of ultimate meaning comes not from a leap out of the human condition, but a journey through its dark waters.”[4]
God comes to us in the depths of where we are. Too often, we have added layers of piety that bind the Holy Spirit into a straight jacket that takes God out of those dark waters. I become party to this straight jacket when worship becomes more pious than God’s own self. More than once, I have left inadequate the wonder and the glory that is two unlikely mothers bearing their even more unlikely children.
Let us go into those dark waters with the story we hear year round, the story of the fully human-fully divine God of all creation. Let us share his grace, his peace, and his mercy so that all of God’s children will be able to see our Lord at work in us and even more importantly beyond us. The Lord will not be contained by what we consider to be absurd or common sense. Let us take the unpasteurized God into the world, sharing God’s life with God’s creation.
[1] Pasteurization, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization, retrieved December 13, 2009
[2] Woolls, Daniel, “Oldest Woman to Give Birth Dies at 69.” boston.com, http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/07/16/oldest_woman_to_give_birth_dies_at_69/, retrieved December 13, 2009.
[3] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, “I Want to Live These Days with You. A Year of Daily Devotions.” Louisville, KY: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2005, page 363.
[4] Heagle, Thomas, “A Contemporary Meditation on Hope.” Chicago: Thomas Moore Press.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Set
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 13, 2009, the 3rd Sunday in Advent.
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
A couple of weeks ago[1] I lamented the way that preparations for Christmas are getting earlier and earlier each year. On Tuesday, I read a posting on one of my favorite websites by a Mr. Mike Kowalski of Rancho Cucamonga, California. He writes, “[I] Went to Disneyland on November 24, in search of, among other things, Disney-themed Christmas ornaments for 2009. Alas, none could be found. But there were plenty of Christmas ornaments with the date 2010.”[2]
In that sermon two weeks ago, I said that before Labor Day seemed excessive to begin preparing for Christmas, but compared to over 13 months in advance of the next Christmas August seems downright reserved.
Disney, in a kind of a sick way, is calling us along side toward the celebration of our dear Savior’s birth. Of course I think they’ve gotten ahead of themselves and that’s what I love about the liturgical calendar as opposed to the marketing plan of a major multi-national corporation and their mouse.
The joy of the liturgical calendar is that at this time of year it prepares us for the coming of the Lord and the coming of Christmas. The discipline of the liturgical calendar also exhorts us not to get ahead of ourselves. We get ready; we get set for the season that is to come. This exhortation is where we start this morning, leading us into John’s exhortations to the crowd.
But first, what is exhortation? According to the dictionary,[3] exhorting is like urging, advising, or cautioning earnestly. It also means admonishing urgently. It can also mean giving urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings. According to my big biblical dictionary,[4] the goal of exhortation is to persuade someone or some ones to act, or think in a particular way. Going back to the Greek roots of the scripture, exhortations came in two ways,[5] as comfort and as admonition. So in by whatever measure you use, exhortations contain elements of discipline and of soothing. There is not necessarily reprimand, but neither is there molly coddling.
Just as important, the Greek version of this word also involves calling the people to the exhorter’s side.[6] The one who exhorts calls the one who receives the word to come together and walk together. This becomes no more evident than when we discover that the Greek root of this word is later used by theologians to describe the Holy Spirit, Paraclete.
Our passage contains four very specific exhortations. I want to start with the last three before returning to the first.
In the first of the set of three exhortations, the crowd asks John “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”
John’s exhortation calls the people to share. But there is an important condition he places on this giving, a qualification which makes a great difference. John calls for those who have two coats to share and those with food to do likewise. John calls those who have more than enough to share with those who do not have enough.
What John advocates is radical. In a way, it is a privately supported welfare system which provides that those who have enough share with those who do not. It requires people who have enough coming forward to share, and it also requires those in need to come forward and receive what they need that they may survive.
This is truly a tightrope of love. While many people with more than enough are more than willing to share, there are others who are not. While many people with need seek help and assistance, there are others who are ashamed to ask. There too are those with surplus and those with need who manipulate the system, causing skepticism among all. Still, when this tightrope is walked with love, when those with more than enough walk alongside those with need; there is enough for everybody.
The next exhortation is directed at the tax collectors that came to be baptized who ask John “Teacher, what should we do?” John tells them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”
As the old Revolutionary War saying goes, “Taxation without representation is unfair.” As the old Mad Magazine corollary goes, “Taxation with representation isn’t all that great either.” John exhorts these men to be honest, and more than being honest is the exhortation to be fair in assessing taxes.
Lurking just below the surface of this exhortation is a little known fact. Being a tax collector wasn’t always the job of “robbing from the poor” we think of when we think of tax collectors. The tax collector’s job is to pay tribute to Rome through the proper middle men. It didn’t matter if the people didn’t pay the tax collector; the tax collector still had to pay the state. So if an individual failed to pay their taxes, the collector was left in a lurch with the Roman overseers. Since this position was also often inherited much in the same way as a family farm, the problem became multi-generational.
In short, some tax collectors were as poor as the people they were collecting taxes from. Some of the tax collectors were in as big a pinch as those they were collecting taxes from. In a way, the only way a tax collector could be assured that they would have no need to over-collect from those who had more assets is for everyone to pay their prescribed taxes. How’s that for an odd exhortation, while directed at the tax collectors to collect no more than the prescribed amount, it also exhorts the people to pay the prescribed amount so that the tax collectors wouldn’t be tempted to take more than was due.
Again, this is a call to be fair in dealings, even paying taxes in love. Again, there were those who manipulated the system. The gospel story of Jesus dining with the tax collector is a fine example. When the tax collector promises to repay those he has cheated three times what he cheated them, we learn both that there’s a lot of tax cheating going on and it can be profitable, but this is not always the case. John exhorts us to respond in love, even in paying taxes.
The third exhortation was in response to the soldiers who asked “What should we do?” John tells them do not “extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations, and be satisfied with [your] wages.”
John tells those with direct and immediate authority to act justly. I can’t speak to the wages of what were probably local men serving as soldiers protecting the tax collectors. But John made their call to the general well being, protecting all manner of people from all manner of evil.
At least one scholar posits that the soldiers were paid poorly and expected to shake down the people to make ends meet[7] making manipulation a part of the system. So this is more than just a call to the soldiers to do their jobs and be satisfied with their wages, it is a call to the government to pay soldiers enough so that they won’t need to shake down the people to make ends meet. It is a call to the people to pay workers equitably so that they not be tempted to steal.
In all three of these cases, John illustrates the “fruits worthy of repentance.” John calls for radical and sweeping reform of the way business is handled in first century Palestine. He calls for the people to take care of each other and the government to take care of the things individual people cannot. People are to refrain from exploiting their positions for their personal gain at the expense of others. People who have wealth, power, and authority are to care for those who are less powerful.
But before we leave the specific exhortations, let us look at the first exhortation. John cried out to the crowd, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I see this as more the discipline element of exhortation than the soothing.
He sees many of those who came out to be dead trees unable to bear fruits worthy of repentance. He sees the unrepentant as ax fodder, kindling for the fire which burns hot the chaff. Still, this is the same crowd he addresses with the exhortation on sharing. John knows that as God can raise children for Abraham out of these stones, the people can repent. John also knows that the people have come, and that is their start.
The crowd comes out to see John. Last week he tells the crowd to get ready. He tells them to prepare the way of the Lord, making his ways straight. This week he tells them to get set. He shows the crowd different ways that they can make straight the ways bearing the good fruit of repentance through a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He also warns that those who do not follow will face horror of unquenchable fire.
The last verse in our gospel this morning reads, “So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” John walks beside us, providing examples to prepare us for the one who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Comfort and admonition are how we get ready and set for the Advent of the Christ child. Next week, we complete the set.
[1] Coming. http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2009/11/coming.html
[2] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/091208&sportCat=nfl, retrieved December 8, 2009.
[3] Exhort, dictionary.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exhort, retrieved December 12, 2009.
[4] Exhortation, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2.Nashville, TN: Abingdon Publishing, page 366.
[5] parakale,w, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Volume V. Gerhard Kittel, Editor. Grand Rapids, MI, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, pages 779-780.
[6] parakale,w, Bauer, Walter, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition. Frederick William Danker, Editor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
[7] The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. IX. Leander E. Keck, Senior Editor. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 84.
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
A couple of weeks ago[1] I lamented the way that preparations for Christmas are getting earlier and earlier each year. On Tuesday, I read a posting on one of my favorite websites by a Mr. Mike Kowalski of Rancho Cucamonga, California. He writes, “[I] Went to Disneyland on November 24, in search of, among other things, Disney-themed Christmas ornaments for 2009. Alas, none could be found. But there were plenty of Christmas ornaments with the date 2010.”[2]
In that sermon two weeks ago, I said that before Labor Day seemed excessive to begin preparing for Christmas, but compared to over 13 months in advance of the next Christmas August seems downright reserved.
Disney, in a kind of a sick way, is calling us along side toward the celebration of our dear Savior’s birth. Of course I think they’ve gotten ahead of themselves and that’s what I love about the liturgical calendar as opposed to the marketing plan of a major multi-national corporation and their mouse.
The joy of the liturgical calendar is that at this time of year it prepares us for the coming of the Lord and the coming of Christmas. The discipline of the liturgical calendar also exhorts us not to get ahead of ourselves. We get ready; we get set for the season that is to come. This exhortation is where we start this morning, leading us into John’s exhortations to the crowd.
But first, what is exhortation? According to the dictionary,[3] exhorting is like urging, advising, or cautioning earnestly. It also means admonishing urgently. It can also mean giving urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings. According to my big biblical dictionary,[4] the goal of exhortation is to persuade someone or some ones to act, or think in a particular way. Going back to the Greek roots of the scripture, exhortations came in two ways,[5] as comfort and as admonition. So in by whatever measure you use, exhortations contain elements of discipline and of soothing. There is not necessarily reprimand, but neither is there molly coddling.
Just as important, the Greek version of this word also involves calling the people to the exhorter’s side.[6] The one who exhorts calls the one who receives the word to come together and walk together. This becomes no more evident than when we discover that the Greek root of this word is later used by theologians to describe the Holy Spirit, Paraclete.
Our passage contains four very specific exhortations. I want to start with the last three before returning to the first.
In the first of the set of three exhortations, the crowd asks John “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”
John’s exhortation calls the people to share. But there is an important condition he places on this giving, a qualification which makes a great difference. John calls for those who have two coats to share and those with food to do likewise. John calls those who have more than enough to share with those who do not have enough.
What John advocates is radical. In a way, it is a privately supported welfare system which provides that those who have enough share with those who do not. It requires people who have enough coming forward to share, and it also requires those in need to come forward and receive what they need that they may survive.
This is truly a tightrope of love. While many people with more than enough are more than willing to share, there are others who are not. While many people with need seek help and assistance, there are others who are ashamed to ask. There too are those with surplus and those with need who manipulate the system, causing skepticism among all. Still, when this tightrope is walked with love, when those with more than enough walk alongside those with need; there is enough for everybody.
The next exhortation is directed at the tax collectors that came to be baptized who ask John “Teacher, what should we do?” John tells them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”
As the old Revolutionary War saying goes, “Taxation without representation is unfair.” As the old Mad Magazine corollary goes, “Taxation with representation isn’t all that great either.” John exhorts these men to be honest, and more than being honest is the exhortation to be fair in assessing taxes.
Lurking just below the surface of this exhortation is a little known fact. Being a tax collector wasn’t always the job of “robbing from the poor” we think of when we think of tax collectors. The tax collector’s job is to pay tribute to Rome through the proper middle men. It didn’t matter if the people didn’t pay the tax collector; the tax collector still had to pay the state. So if an individual failed to pay their taxes, the collector was left in a lurch with the Roman overseers. Since this position was also often inherited much in the same way as a family farm, the problem became multi-generational.
In short, some tax collectors were as poor as the people they were collecting taxes from. Some of the tax collectors were in as big a pinch as those they were collecting taxes from. In a way, the only way a tax collector could be assured that they would have no need to over-collect from those who had more assets is for everyone to pay their prescribed taxes. How’s that for an odd exhortation, while directed at the tax collectors to collect no more than the prescribed amount, it also exhorts the people to pay the prescribed amount so that the tax collectors wouldn’t be tempted to take more than was due.
Again, this is a call to be fair in dealings, even paying taxes in love. Again, there were those who manipulated the system. The gospel story of Jesus dining with the tax collector is a fine example. When the tax collector promises to repay those he has cheated three times what he cheated them, we learn both that there’s a lot of tax cheating going on and it can be profitable, but this is not always the case. John exhorts us to respond in love, even in paying taxes.
The third exhortation was in response to the soldiers who asked “What should we do?” John tells them do not “extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations, and be satisfied with [your] wages.”
John tells those with direct and immediate authority to act justly. I can’t speak to the wages of what were probably local men serving as soldiers protecting the tax collectors. But John made their call to the general well being, protecting all manner of people from all manner of evil.
At least one scholar posits that the soldiers were paid poorly and expected to shake down the people to make ends meet[7] making manipulation a part of the system. So this is more than just a call to the soldiers to do their jobs and be satisfied with their wages, it is a call to the government to pay soldiers enough so that they won’t need to shake down the people to make ends meet. It is a call to the people to pay workers equitably so that they not be tempted to steal.
In all three of these cases, John illustrates the “fruits worthy of repentance.” John calls for radical and sweeping reform of the way business is handled in first century Palestine. He calls for the people to take care of each other and the government to take care of the things individual people cannot. People are to refrain from exploiting their positions for their personal gain at the expense of others. People who have wealth, power, and authority are to care for those who are less powerful.
But before we leave the specific exhortations, let us look at the first exhortation. John cried out to the crowd, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I see this as more the discipline element of exhortation than the soothing.
He sees many of those who came out to be dead trees unable to bear fruits worthy of repentance. He sees the unrepentant as ax fodder, kindling for the fire which burns hot the chaff. Still, this is the same crowd he addresses with the exhortation on sharing. John knows that as God can raise children for Abraham out of these stones, the people can repent. John also knows that the people have come, and that is their start.
The crowd comes out to see John. Last week he tells the crowd to get ready. He tells them to prepare the way of the Lord, making his ways straight. This week he tells them to get set. He shows the crowd different ways that they can make straight the ways bearing the good fruit of repentance through a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He also warns that those who do not follow will face horror of unquenchable fire.
The last verse in our gospel this morning reads, “So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” John walks beside us, providing examples to prepare us for the one who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Comfort and admonition are how we get ready and set for the Advent of the Christ child. Next week, we complete the set.
[1] Coming. http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2009/11/coming.html
[2] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/091208&sportCat=nfl, retrieved December 8, 2009.
[3] Exhort, dictionary.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exhort, retrieved December 12, 2009.
[4] Exhortation, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2.Nashville, TN: Abingdon Publishing, page 366.
[5] parakale,w, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Volume V. Gerhard Kittel, Editor. Grand Rapids, MI, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, pages 779-780.
[6] parakale,w, Bauer, Walter, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition. Frederick William Danker, Editor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
[7] The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. IX. Leander E. Keck, Senior Editor. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 84.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Ready
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 6, 2009, the 2nd Sunday in Advent.
Malachi 3:1-4
Luke 1:68-79
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
I have been a fan of “Godspell” for years. I first found out about the musical at First Presbyterian in Overland Park, Kansas in 1974, just a couple of years after the movie release. The Reverend Doctor Donald Evans did a Sunday youth study of the musical and connected it more directly to the gospel. I remember him commenting that the church organist, a woman this twelve-year-old thought of as an old lady, would have loved playing “Turn Back, Old Man.” But as was the case with so much of my teen-age theological development, it really didn’t stick.
Godspell really began to mean something to me just twelve years ago, after meeting Marie. So compared to many, I am a Johnny-come-lately of “Godspell” love, but that’s fine with me, it became important to me when it was right for me. So of course when I read today’s gospel passage, this voice of John the Baptist singing “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” thunders in my head. Then I let it thunder in my ears.
The next song asks the musical question, “When will God save the people?”
John takes this on in our reading from Luke’s gospel, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” John echoes the words of the prophet Isaiah, the words of preparation for all of Israel. John tells a people who have always sought their messiah that he was coming to save the people. It is time to prepare. John tells a people who have been waiting for a prophetic voice since the words of Malachi over 400 years earlier that their messiah was coming to save the people. It is time to prepare.
Make his paths straight. It’s not as if we have to take a scythe and cut back the long grasses, so how do we make his paths straight? What do we do to prepare the way of the Lord? The Reverend Jeff Parker asks three questions to help congregations make straight his paths. He asks:
What are we; what is the Church living for?
What are we willing to die for?
What excites you?
When we answer these questions, both as individuals and as a congregation, we tell the Lord how we prepare the way. When we answer these questions, we tell the world how we will prepare the way. When we execute the preparations, we actually do the work of making his paths straight.
William Sloane Coffin[1] quotes Teilhard de Chardin saying, “The world will belong tomorrow to those who brought it the greatest hope.” Coffin follows this asking “What can we [the Church] bring the world if not hope?”
Coffin continues, “I want to irrigate the community with hope, because without hope we are all literally hopeless, creatures of despair. If we cannot feel something more, we will become something less, just as if we cannot look to something above us, we will surely sink to something below us.”
So here are the questions again:
What are we; what is the Church living for?
What are we willing to die for?
What excites you?
By Coffin’s reckoning, the church lives to give hope. The church lives to give hope. As the Body of Christ on earth, it is our place; it is our mission to bring hope to the world. This is what we are to live for. How’s that for almost answering the question. We live to give hope. We live to bring hope to the hopeless lest we become less than what the Lord has called us to be. This answer is almost as vague as a beauty contestant saying that she hopes for world peace. Still, it is undeniably what we are here for.
This quest, this vocation may seem overly vague, then again to others it may seem overly specific. I have had trouble with both extremes lately. But as ethereal and other-worldly or as dead solid perfect as it may seem; the passage from our Gospel reading begins with something very, very specific.
When we read the first verses from chapter three, we learn about the powerful people of the day. Tiberius was the emperor in Rome, Pilate was Governor of Judea, and Herod ruled Galilee. In the Temple, Annas and Caiphas were the high priests. John, the son of Zechariah was in the wilderness. Jesus wasn’t even in this part of the picture.
There are a good many things we can take from this part of the reading. We can talk about the political climate of the time. There are many things known about Tiberius from history that are not from scripture. The chronicles of history are also filled with facts and stories about the Judean contingent from this reading too. We can also pick apart the economics of the era and the face of the church.
If we wanted to, we could rip apart every detail, every fact, and try to discern what is accurate, what is exaggeration, and what is pure fiction. We could get a full cable news show, or even series about the history found in these very verses. What am I saying? Dozens of these shows have been produced and reproduced since the golden age of television. But there is one thing all of the history will never quite say to us, one thing that is important to us today.
What these verses show is that there is a context, a specific time and place to the ministry of John the Baptist in Galilee. There was a political climate. There was an economic climate. There was a religious climate. Luke’s gospel puts a great big pin into the timeline of history and says this happened here and then.
In this time and place, this is what happened. It is always within a specific time and place that ministry happens. Ministry and faith, evangelism and justice are more than just things studied in Sunday School or in seminary. They are more than just words put into the Sunday morning sermon. They are more than discussion points for some author’s new book. They are things we are called to be and to have and to do here and now. They are things the prophets displayed long ago. They are the things the apostles and the disciples took to the countryside and to their crosses.
Ministry is always done in the context of God’s creation to expand God’s glory. Ministry like the missions that take the Word of God to places where it is unknown in tongues and ways the people understand, this is ministry done in context. Ministry like the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank, ministry like the back pack project, ministry like visiting the sick and imprisoned; these are all set to a specific time and place.
The song asks, “When will God save the people?” John answers “Get ready, because here he comes.” In this time and place we answer, “He has come, he has saved the people, and he continues to save the people.”
So we respond as John calls all of the children of the wilderness to respond. He proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He calls us to turn from the lives we lead now and be anointed in the waters of the baptism he proclaims. John calls us to come to the water to join together as a people turning from the political intrigue of the day and turn to forgiveness of sins.
How do we respond to our own words “He has come, he has saved the people, and he continues to save the people?” When we figure out the answer to that question we will be well on our way to answering Rev. Parker’s questions about what we are willing to live and die for. We will be ready to answer Rev. Parker’s question about what excites us.
These may seem like rhetorical questions, questions that don’t expect answers, but they are not. The answers to these questions take us from receiving a baptism for repentance for forgiveness of sins and actual repentance. It is how the church brings hope to the world. It is the difference between having hope for the future and in the words of de Chardin bringing hope to the world; and being a place to kill an hour on a Sunday. It is the reason we go to church, not just to hear the word, but to participate in bringing the word to life.
Let us prepare the way of the Lord. Let us become a part of the answer to the question, “When will God save the people?” And it is in this motion, going from hearing the word to participating in the word that we make the turn from getting ready, but that is for next week’s sermon.
[1] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Vol. 1. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 480.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Coming
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 29, 2009, the 1st Sunday in Advent.
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
I don’t know if you heard the starter’s pistol on Friday morning, but it went off signaling the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season. The square is buzzing with activity. Wal-Mart is flooded with shoppers. The highways to Springfield and Branson; to Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers are burning up with drivers on their way to the malls.
If you missed this activity, I commend you and the rock you were living under. The sheet metal nativity is up on the square. The Christmas lights on the highway have been up for quite a while. Andy Williams is gracing the television calling this the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Maybe the worst part of all of this is that the Christmas advertising season began before the football season this year.[1] It’s one thing to start getting ready for Christmas before Thanksgiving; it’s quite another thing to start getting ready for it before Labor Day.
So as we prepare for the coming of the Christmas season we are met with one of the most Christmassy images in Holy Writ, the people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world followed by the Son of Man coming in a great cloud with power and glory. Yep, nothing says “Christmas” like the gory and the glory.
During this season of Advent we celebrate the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. A tremendous amount of our economy is tied around the litany of things holy and human wrapped into this season. So it just seems unusual that we begin this Advent season with the images of Second Coming, this isn’t the usual path to the first Christmas. But really, that, as much as any other, may be the point of selecting this reading to start the season.
We are accustomed to the coming of a little baby like the one in the sheet metal crèche on the square. This time, this expectation is turned on its ear. We read instead about what all Christians anticipate, the next coming of this same Christ with power and glory. We expect a baby; we get something we don’t expect.
A theologian once wrote:
Our time is a time of waiting; waiting is its special destiny. And every time is a time of waiting, waiting for the breaking in of eternity. All time runs forward. All time, both history and in personal life, is expectation. Time itself is waiting, waiting not for another time, but for that which is eternal.[2]
We wait. We wait for what has all ready come. We wait for what is coming. Especially during this time of year, our waiting and anticipating are of his joyful and glorious arrival. We will sing songs of great joy celebrating our Lord’s birth and the promise of his life. But here, in this text, while we anticipate the wondrous joy of a season still coming, we are confronted with a more shocking image.
A couple of weeks ago, we read from the beginning of this chapter of Luke. Today, we read from nearly the end. Remembering the beginning of Luke 21, we are warned of wars and rumors of wars. We are warned that nation will rise against nation. We read of famines and plagues. We read of earthquakes then of dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
Before this happens, yes before this happens we read that we will be arrested and persecuted; handed over to religious and civil authorities. We will be betrayed by our friends and our families; and some of us will be put to death for what we believe in and for whom we believe in. We will be accursed, hated for proclaiming the name of Jesus the Christ.
Returning to the horrors of our passage, there is one thing missing that I imagine we would like to hear. As for me, I would love to hear Jesus say, “Just kidding, phew! This is the stuff that will happen to unbelievers. You get a free pass on all of this horrible stuff. Yes I said you will be hated by all because of my name, but that’s just me pulling your leg.” I would really like to hear that.
Marie is so cute, when someone pulls her leg she often says “Pull the other one, it has bells on it.”
Good Lord in heaven, I would love it if Jesus promised that from the moment I first believed that these fears would be a part of my past and not of my future. I would love the “and they all lived happily ever after” ending, but that is not the promise Jesus makes for us in this world.
Instead, we are warned and we are encouraged. We are not told this will not go away, on the contrary, we are told to be on guard that our hearts are not weighted down “with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.” FYI—We have a handle on drunkenness and the worries of this life, but dissipation may be a new word for us. It means, “The nausea that follows a debauch.”[3] The passage is a warning not to worry so much about this life that we get so drunk so we become physically ill. Sage advice for any situation.
We are then told “Lift up your heads and be alert at all times praying that you may have the strength.” We are told to prepare. A hard rain’s gonna fall and there won’t be time to get an umbrella once it starts. Get prepared. Be alert and pray for strength.
There is a darkness which has, is and does come upon creation. But even the darkness, even the horror of a sin sick creation broken far beyond any intentions of our loving God, even this darkness has a value. Catholic theologian John Navone writes:
Darkness provides us with a therapeutic limit-experience, illuminating the meagerness of human resources for experiencing, understanding and communicating the divine. It reminds us that God alone has an adequate idea of who God is and that even our most successful efforts at understanding God are inadequate. When darkness induces modesty, humility, faith and trust, it leads to a communion with God as God really is; it frees us from the self-deception of worshiping Gods of our own making. Only the real God saves; not the illusion. The true Israelite is the wise person who makes a home ‘in the shadow of the Shaddai’[4] (the Almighty).
We are not promised the end of trials. We are not promised that our earthly tomorrows will be filled with peace and joy. On the contrary, this passage seems to promise that even after the day of our dear Savior’s birth there will be what I call “days like this.” The world will be filled with pain and strife. The world will continue to be a very scary place. As with every day since the first coming of the baby Jesus upon his creation, for better or for worse, people will continue to act like people. For better is the prayer, for worse is the expectation.
There is a darkness in our lives that is terrible, but can in Navone’s words be therapeutic. We are not to delude ourselves into believing that Jesus is a magic potion. Jesus is Lord, and it is when our darkness induces faith and trust that we are freed to be with and serve our Lord.
Our call is to not get tied into knots. Our vocation is to be watchful and pray for strength. We are to do this so that we may escape all of the things that are about to happen. We are not promised that the terror of life on earth ceases.
Instead we are promised that by the strength of Jesus, we may be able to escape these things and may be able to stand before him. We are to lift up our heads, be alert, and pray for strength so that we may escape the terror and stand before the Son of Man. This is how we live, and this is how we are to live, making our home in the shadow of the Shaddai.
There is terror in this world. We don’t have to look beyond these very walls to see the ravages of war and sickness, of natural disasters and economic calamity. There is uncertainty in this sanctuary over one and many matters. We all come with our individual worries and we come with our corporate worries.
And we come to the throne of grace. We come to the throne of peace. We come in the darkness created by the sin of generations before us and continuing in the sin of our own. We come seeking strength to escape the terror of life.
Now and forever, let us remember that the wolf is at the door, but it is by Christ’s power and glory—the glory that is coming and continues to come until he comes again in power—by Christ we may stand in his strength and not be laid low by the world.
[1] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, ESPN.com Page 2, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/090818&sportCat=nfl, retrieved November 29, 2009.
[2] Tillich, Paul, “The Shaking of the Foundations.” Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.
[3] A. T. Robertson, “Word Pictures in the New Testament.” Vol. 2. The Gospel According to Luke. New York: Richard R. Smith, 1930, page 262.
[4] Navone, John, “The Jesus Story, Our Life as Story in Christ. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., The Liturgical Press, 1979.
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
I don’t know if you heard the starter’s pistol on Friday morning, but it went off signaling the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season. The square is buzzing with activity. Wal-Mart is flooded with shoppers. The highways to Springfield and Branson; to Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers are burning up with drivers on their way to the malls.
If you missed this activity, I commend you and the rock you were living under. The sheet metal nativity is up on the square. The Christmas lights on the highway have been up for quite a while. Andy Williams is gracing the television calling this the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Maybe the worst part of all of this is that the Christmas advertising season began before the football season this year.[1] It’s one thing to start getting ready for Christmas before Thanksgiving; it’s quite another thing to start getting ready for it before Labor Day.
So as we prepare for the coming of the Christmas season we are met with one of the most Christmassy images in Holy Writ, the people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world followed by the Son of Man coming in a great cloud with power and glory. Yep, nothing says “Christmas” like the gory and the glory.
During this season of Advent we celebrate the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. A tremendous amount of our economy is tied around the litany of things holy and human wrapped into this season. So it just seems unusual that we begin this Advent season with the images of Second Coming, this isn’t the usual path to the first Christmas. But really, that, as much as any other, may be the point of selecting this reading to start the season.
We are accustomed to the coming of a little baby like the one in the sheet metal crèche on the square. This time, this expectation is turned on its ear. We read instead about what all Christians anticipate, the next coming of this same Christ with power and glory. We expect a baby; we get something we don’t expect.
A theologian once wrote:
Our time is a time of waiting; waiting is its special destiny. And every time is a time of waiting, waiting for the breaking in of eternity. All time runs forward. All time, both history and in personal life, is expectation. Time itself is waiting, waiting not for another time, but for that which is eternal.[2]
We wait. We wait for what has all ready come. We wait for what is coming. Especially during this time of year, our waiting and anticipating are of his joyful and glorious arrival. We will sing songs of great joy celebrating our Lord’s birth and the promise of his life. But here, in this text, while we anticipate the wondrous joy of a season still coming, we are confronted with a more shocking image.
A couple of weeks ago, we read from the beginning of this chapter of Luke. Today, we read from nearly the end. Remembering the beginning of Luke 21, we are warned of wars and rumors of wars. We are warned that nation will rise against nation. We read of famines and plagues. We read of earthquakes then of dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
Before this happens, yes before this happens we read that we will be arrested and persecuted; handed over to religious and civil authorities. We will be betrayed by our friends and our families; and some of us will be put to death for what we believe in and for whom we believe in. We will be accursed, hated for proclaiming the name of Jesus the Christ.
Returning to the horrors of our passage, there is one thing missing that I imagine we would like to hear. As for me, I would love to hear Jesus say, “Just kidding, phew! This is the stuff that will happen to unbelievers. You get a free pass on all of this horrible stuff. Yes I said you will be hated by all because of my name, but that’s just me pulling your leg.” I would really like to hear that.
Marie is so cute, when someone pulls her leg she often says “Pull the other one, it has bells on it.”
Good Lord in heaven, I would love it if Jesus promised that from the moment I first believed that these fears would be a part of my past and not of my future. I would love the “and they all lived happily ever after” ending, but that is not the promise Jesus makes for us in this world.
Instead, we are warned and we are encouraged. We are not told this will not go away, on the contrary, we are told to be on guard that our hearts are not weighted down “with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.” FYI—We have a handle on drunkenness and the worries of this life, but dissipation may be a new word for us. It means, “The nausea that follows a debauch.”[3] The passage is a warning not to worry so much about this life that we get so drunk so we become physically ill. Sage advice for any situation.
We are then told “Lift up your heads and be alert at all times praying that you may have the strength.” We are told to prepare. A hard rain’s gonna fall and there won’t be time to get an umbrella once it starts. Get prepared. Be alert and pray for strength.
There is a darkness which has, is and does come upon creation. But even the darkness, even the horror of a sin sick creation broken far beyond any intentions of our loving God, even this darkness has a value. Catholic theologian John Navone writes:
Darkness provides us with a therapeutic limit-experience, illuminating the meagerness of human resources for experiencing, understanding and communicating the divine. It reminds us that God alone has an adequate idea of who God is and that even our most successful efforts at understanding God are inadequate. When darkness induces modesty, humility, faith and trust, it leads to a communion with God as God really is; it frees us from the self-deception of worshiping Gods of our own making. Only the real God saves; not the illusion. The true Israelite is the wise person who makes a home ‘in the shadow of the Shaddai’[4] (the Almighty).
We are not promised the end of trials. We are not promised that our earthly tomorrows will be filled with peace and joy. On the contrary, this passage seems to promise that even after the day of our dear Savior’s birth there will be what I call “days like this.” The world will be filled with pain and strife. The world will continue to be a very scary place. As with every day since the first coming of the baby Jesus upon his creation, for better or for worse, people will continue to act like people. For better is the prayer, for worse is the expectation.
There is a darkness in our lives that is terrible, but can in Navone’s words be therapeutic. We are not to delude ourselves into believing that Jesus is a magic potion. Jesus is Lord, and it is when our darkness induces faith and trust that we are freed to be with and serve our Lord.
Our call is to not get tied into knots. Our vocation is to be watchful and pray for strength. We are to do this so that we may escape all of the things that are about to happen. We are not promised that the terror of life on earth ceases.
Instead we are promised that by the strength of Jesus, we may be able to escape these things and may be able to stand before him. We are to lift up our heads, be alert, and pray for strength so that we may escape the terror and stand before the Son of Man. This is how we live, and this is how we are to live, making our home in the shadow of the Shaddai.
There is terror in this world. We don’t have to look beyond these very walls to see the ravages of war and sickness, of natural disasters and economic calamity. There is uncertainty in this sanctuary over one and many matters. We all come with our individual worries and we come with our corporate worries.
And we come to the throne of grace. We come to the throne of peace. We come in the darkness created by the sin of generations before us and continuing in the sin of our own. We come seeking strength to escape the terror of life.
Now and forever, let us remember that the wolf is at the door, but it is by Christ’s power and glory—the glory that is coming and continues to come until he comes again in power—by Christ we may stand in his strength and not be laid low by the world.
[1] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, ESPN.com Page 2, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/090818&sportCat=nfl, retrieved November 29, 2009.
[2] Tillich, Paul, “The Shaking of the Foundations.” Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.
[3] A. T. Robertson, “Word Pictures in the New Testament.” Vol. 2. The Gospel According to Luke. New York: Richard R. Smith, 1930, page 262.
[4] Navone, John, “The Jesus Story, Our Life as Story in Christ. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., The Liturgical Press, 1979.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
What Have You Done?
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 22, 2009, the 34th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Christ the King Sunday.
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-12
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
I love the written word. I love the Word of God written, I love good theology written, and I love a good novel. I love little messages on facebook and Twitter. I love sharing wisdom through email. I even love composing and sending the pastoral letter every month for “The Epistle.” There is one thing that is difficult though, things that are obvious in the spoken word get lost in the written word.
In some forms of writing, there is often a presumption of shared experience. The shared experience allows the writer to tell the reader something in fewer words because there is a presumption that the set-up is known to the reader. After reading the first James Bond novel, we know who Bond is, so we don’t have to go through a detailed introduction in each novel. Because of shared experience, a few words is all it takes.
But this presumption is not always valid. One of the places where it is least valid is in social networking websites, tools like facebook, Twitter, and email; and in these settings, misunderstandings can quickly make their way around the world between breakfast and lunch. In the church it is true, with implications in the work of the Kingdom of God.
It is with this that I restate Pilate’s question to Jesus, “What have you done?”
The way we often read this, the way I have always read it, is that Pilate stands as judge and asks Jesus for a recitation of the charges. Pilate is asking a question the way a judge asks an accused. There is no reason to think this is a misinterpretation of Pilate’s question. After all, Pilate is the Prefect of Judea. Jesus was brought to Pilate for judgment by the Sanhedrin. This tone, this way that Pilate asks this question is valid, but I want us to consider something else.
Consider this, consider this little bit of the historical and cultural setting as well as the passage’s setting. First, let’s remember that Pilate was a politician. As any good politician, he knew what was going on in his district. He knew who the players were. He knew who had power, both formal and informal power. He knew the movers and shakers, and he knew the blowhards and stuffed shirts. He would have his finger on the pulse of the countryside, especially right before the Passover.
Pilate would have gotten the news that there was a prophet in the Judean hills performing great and miraculous signs and wonders. He would have been told about the healings. He would have heard that this prophet had bested the Scribes and Pharisees in several battles of wits.
Pilate would have heard about the crowds that had gathered around him, and were continuing to grow around him. He absolutely would have heard of this prophet entering Jerusalem on the back of a colt. Even if Pilate had no idea about the prophetic implications[1] of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, he would have known something big was happening because of the crowds and the shouts of “Hosanna.”
As the Prefect, Pilate was appointed by the Emperor to oversee Judea. The first thing he did was push the Judean leaders so that they would push back in one of those lovely “big dog” moments. The Judeans got a good look at how hard Pilate would push and Pilate saw how Judeans would push back.[2] It became known quickly that Pilate was a firm, but not a brutal ruler. The first dance soon ended and the administration of Judea by Pilate had begun. As with any occupying force, Pilate was not loved by those whose homeland was occupied.
So let’s reset the scene. Pilate is Prefect. He is a firm foreign ruler over a proud nation. He is not despised, but he is not loved by those he rules. In the verses just prior to this scene, the Sanhedrin had come to Pilate asking him to crucify Jesus. When Pilate asks them why, they say, “We wouldn’t bring him to you if he didn’t deserve it.” It’s like the old expression that only the guilty get arrested.
The story goes that the Sanhedrin turned Jesus over to Pilate because the Jewish leaders could not execute prisoners, but this may not be true. At least one source says that the Sanhedrin may have had the authority to execute prisoners for breaking religious law.[3] If this is true, they would have been able to execute Jesus for (by their account) his blasphemy. If they tried to do this, there surely would have been rioting in the streets; the disciples of Jesus taking on the religious rulers. This would have been no good at all for any of them. Any civil unrest, especially at the Passover would have forced Pilate’s firm hand against the entire nation.
So yes, they could have executed Jesus for breaking religious law, but they were so nervous over the fallout that they were willing to go to the ruler they did not like asking him to do what they themselves would not do.
As a politician shrewd enough to gain this post, Pilate was able to put one and one together and come up with two. In this case, it meant that he knew what Jesus was doing; and even if Pilate didn’t know the theological and prophetic ramifications of what he was doing, he knew that it was making the Jewish ruling elite very, very nervous.
So here’s how I choose to rephrase this question, Pilate asks Jesus, What have you done? What have you done to make these guys so upset that they come to me? What did you do to turn the entire countryside on its ear? What did you do to earn this level of spite from your own people? What have you done to make these people think I was less of an enemy than you?
That’s the question. What did Jesus do?
The glorious images that make up the answers to this question have been with us since we began reading the Gospels of Mark and John at Advent last year. The images of the Baptism of the Lord, the miracles, the healings; these things help answer the question, “What did you do.” But more than all of these things, more than these wonderful and glorious things, we are given an image from John the Revelator about who Jesus is and what he did and about what he continues to do.
He is the faithful witness. Jesus is the Christ, the select, the anointed; he is the one who was elected to come and bring the Word of the Lord to life in the world. He is the one who does only what he sees his Father doing. He is the one who in eternal relationship with the other persons of the Holy Trinity has seen and participated in the works of God since before the beginning. He is the one who came to earth, fully human and fully divine, teaching us through his words and actions.
He is the firstborn of the dead. He is the one who died and rose again. As we testify in the Apostles’ Creed, he descended into hell and rose again from the dead. As the firstborn of the dead, He is the Son who leads his brothers and sisters who too have died and will too die. He is the one who conquered death so that we will no longer know the sting of the cold hard hand of mortality.
He has freed us from the power of sin by his own blood. As the Lamb of God, there is no other sacrifice that can be made that will be able to do what God has done now and forever through His Holy Son Jesus. There is no other priest that can make a sacrifice like the one the high priest of God makes of his own body, his own blood, his own life. By the power of his blood, we are freed. This we celebrate today and as often as we share the plate and the cup.
He is the ruler over the kings of the earth and has made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve him now and forever. Amen.
The question is not just what did Jesus do, it is what does Jesus continue to do. Pilate’s question is almost rhetorical. The answer he wants isn’t about the charges; the politician in him knows all he needs from the Pharisees who bring Jesus. The question Pilate wants answered is much deeper than just a recitation of the charges; Pilate wants to know the truth about Jesus. The truth Pilate wants to hear is the truth we testify to on this Christ the King Sunday is that the Lord is King and for this he was born. In this we rejoice in God’s triumph on behalf of all creation.[4]
The King of Kings lives and breathes and remains with us. We are to share this glorious hope not as people in pews, not as a fat man in the pulpit, not as mere mortal beings, but in the words of the Revelation, “as priests serving his God and father.”
[1] Zechariah 9:9
[2] Pilate, Pontius entry, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, General Editor. Nashville: TN, Abingdon Press, 2009, page 526.
[3] Ibid.
[4] This is a nod to “Rejoice, the Lord Is King” (Lyric by Charles Wesley, Music by John Darwall). This was sung as the Hymn of Response following the sermon.
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-12
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
I love the written word. I love the Word of God written, I love good theology written, and I love a good novel. I love little messages on facebook and Twitter. I love sharing wisdom through email. I even love composing and sending the pastoral letter every month for “The Epistle.” There is one thing that is difficult though, things that are obvious in the spoken word get lost in the written word.
In some forms of writing, there is often a presumption of shared experience. The shared experience allows the writer to tell the reader something in fewer words because there is a presumption that the set-up is known to the reader. After reading the first James Bond novel, we know who Bond is, so we don’t have to go through a detailed introduction in each novel. Because of shared experience, a few words is all it takes.
But this presumption is not always valid. One of the places where it is least valid is in social networking websites, tools like facebook, Twitter, and email; and in these settings, misunderstandings can quickly make their way around the world between breakfast and lunch. In the church it is true, with implications in the work of the Kingdom of God.
It is with this that I restate Pilate’s question to Jesus, “What have you done?”
The way we often read this, the way I have always read it, is that Pilate stands as judge and asks Jesus for a recitation of the charges. Pilate is asking a question the way a judge asks an accused. There is no reason to think this is a misinterpretation of Pilate’s question. After all, Pilate is the Prefect of Judea. Jesus was brought to Pilate for judgment by the Sanhedrin. This tone, this way that Pilate asks this question is valid, but I want us to consider something else.
Consider this, consider this little bit of the historical and cultural setting as well as the passage’s setting. First, let’s remember that Pilate was a politician. As any good politician, he knew what was going on in his district. He knew who the players were. He knew who had power, both formal and informal power. He knew the movers and shakers, and he knew the blowhards and stuffed shirts. He would have his finger on the pulse of the countryside, especially right before the Passover.
Pilate would have gotten the news that there was a prophet in the Judean hills performing great and miraculous signs and wonders. He would have been told about the healings. He would have heard that this prophet had bested the Scribes and Pharisees in several battles of wits.
Pilate would have heard about the crowds that had gathered around him, and were continuing to grow around him. He absolutely would have heard of this prophet entering Jerusalem on the back of a colt. Even if Pilate had no idea about the prophetic implications[1] of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, he would have known something big was happening because of the crowds and the shouts of “Hosanna.”
As the Prefect, Pilate was appointed by the Emperor to oversee Judea. The first thing he did was push the Judean leaders so that they would push back in one of those lovely “big dog” moments. The Judeans got a good look at how hard Pilate would push and Pilate saw how Judeans would push back.[2] It became known quickly that Pilate was a firm, but not a brutal ruler. The first dance soon ended and the administration of Judea by Pilate had begun. As with any occupying force, Pilate was not loved by those whose homeland was occupied.
So let’s reset the scene. Pilate is Prefect. He is a firm foreign ruler over a proud nation. He is not despised, but he is not loved by those he rules. In the verses just prior to this scene, the Sanhedrin had come to Pilate asking him to crucify Jesus. When Pilate asks them why, they say, “We wouldn’t bring him to you if he didn’t deserve it.” It’s like the old expression that only the guilty get arrested.
The story goes that the Sanhedrin turned Jesus over to Pilate because the Jewish leaders could not execute prisoners, but this may not be true. At least one source says that the Sanhedrin may have had the authority to execute prisoners for breaking religious law.[3] If this is true, they would have been able to execute Jesus for (by their account) his blasphemy. If they tried to do this, there surely would have been rioting in the streets; the disciples of Jesus taking on the religious rulers. This would have been no good at all for any of them. Any civil unrest, especially at the Passover would have forced Pilate’s firm hand against the entire nation.
So yes, they could have executed Jesus for breaking religious law, but they were so nervous over the fallout that they were willing to go to the ruler they did not like asking him to do what they themselves would not do.
As a politician shrewd enough to gain this post, Pilate was able to put one and one together and come up with two. In this case, it meant that he knew what Jesus was doing; and even if Pilate didn’t know the theological and prophetic ramifications of what he was doing, he knew that it was making the Jewish ruling elite very, very nervous.
So here’s how I choose to rephrase this question, Pilate asks Jesus, What have you done? What have you done to make these guys so upset that they come to me? What did you do to turn the entire countryside on its ear? What did you do to earn this level of spite from your own people? What have you done to make these people think I was less of an enemy than you?
That’s the question. What did Jesus do?
The glorious images that make up the answers to this question have been with us since we began reading the Gospels of Mark and John at Advent last year. The images of the Baptism of the Lord, the miracles, the healings; these things help answer the question, “What did you do.” But more than all of these things, more than these wonderful and glorious things, we are given an image from John the Revelator about who Jesus is and what he did and about what he continues to do.
He is the faithful witness. Jesus is the Christ, the select, the anointed; he is the one who was elected to come and bring the Word of the Lord to life in the world. He is the one who does only what he sees his Father doing. He is the one who in eternal relationship with the other persons of the Holy Trinity has seen and participated in the works of God since before the beginning. He is the one who came to earth, fully human and fully divine, teaching us through his words and actions.
He is the firstborn of the dead. He is the one who died and rose again. As we testify in the Apostles’ Creed, he descended into hell and rose again from the dead. As the firstborn of the dead, He is the Son who leads his brothers and sisters who too have died and will too die. He is the one who conquered death so that we will no longer know the sting of the cold hard hand of mortality.
He has freed us from the power of sin by his own blood. As the Lamb of God, there is no other sacrifice that can be made that will be able to do what God has done now and forever through His Holy Son Jesus. There is no other priest that can make a sacrifice like the one the high priest of God makes of his own body, his own blood, his own life. By the power of his blood, we are freed. This we celebrate today and as often as we share the plate and the cup.
He is the ruler over the kings of the earth and has made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve him now and forever. Amen.
The question is not just what did Jesus do, it is what does Jesus continue to do. Pilate’s question is almost rhetorical. The answer he wants isn’t about the charges; the politician in him knows all he needs from the Pharisees who bring Jesus. The question Pilate wants answered is much deeper than just a recitation of the charges; Pilate wants to know the truth about Jesus. The truth Pilate wants to hear is the truth we testify to on this Christ the King Sunday is that the Lord is King and for this he was born. In this we rejoice in God’s triumph on behalf of all creation.[4]
The King of Kings lives and breathes and remains with us. We are to share this glorious hope not as people in pews, not as a fat man in the pulpit, not as mere mortal beings, but in the words of the Revelation, “as priests serving his God and father.”
[1] Zechariah 9:9
[2] Pilate, Pontius entry, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, General Editor. Nashville: TN, Abingdon Press, 2009, page 526.
[3] Ibid.
[4] This is a nod to “Rejoice, the Lord Is King” (Lyric by Charles Wesley, Music by John Darwall). This was sung as the Hymn of Response following the sermon.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
If I Had a Hammer...
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 15, 2009, the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
1 Samuel 1:4-20
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hebrews 10:11-14; 19-25
Mark 13:1-8
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I read the news today. What an amazingly depraved world we live in. In a little less than a year, our Mayor was cited twice and served jail time twice for driving while impaired and possession of marijuana. A noted local attorney was arrested on so many drug related charges that her bond was set at $50,000.00; and the only reason it wasn’t $100,000.00 was because she agreed to immediately enter a drug rehabilitation program. Chris Helmlinger was found in a shallow grave because someone wanted to steal his identity. All they wanted his identity, his name and his numbers, so they took his life.
It was less than ten days ago that Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed thirteen people at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, the largest mass murder ever on a domestic military base.[1] This happened just eleven days shy of the anniversary of another notorious mass murder, this too in Killeen.
Eighteen years ago tomorrow, George Jo Hennard drove his pickup through the front window of the Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen. Then after shooting and killing twenty-three and wounding twenty others he turned his weapon on himself. This was the deadliest shooting spree in America, until the Virginia Tech shootings not eighteen months ago.
Last night CNN showed a special on the survivors of the Jonestown massacre. Nearly a thousand died and barely thirty survived the horrific mass murder/suicide which introduced into the American conscience the expression “drink the Kool-Aid.”
As for me, I don’t think the question “what kind of sick, twisted world is this?” should ever be asked. It always seems to me that just as soon as it’s asked, the answer rears its ugly head getting more and more grotesque.
In my opinion, and your mileage may vary, I don’t think the world is really any worse than it was in biblical times. Some of the things we read about in scripture’s historical books are just as sick and twisted as anything I have just described. The one thing that makes us really different is that we are bigger, stronger, and faster than our biblical counterparts. We’ve become the “Six-Million-Dollar-Man” of sin. Add to this the ready access to information which has increased exponentially since Guttenberg invented the printing press, and we may not be worse. But if it seems that way to you, I won’t press the point.
Jesus told his disciples that the temple will fall, not one stone will be left upon another, all will be thrown down. Later, when asked in private, Jesus warned the brothers, James and John, Peter and Andrew, that they will hear of wars and rumors of wars. They were warned that nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. They were warned of earthquakes and famine.
The signs are there, the signs are alive and well. A Google search with the terms “end times” returns over 262,000,000 hits in under one-eighth of a second. Yes, Jesus warns that end times are coming and there are a whole lot of people who are trying to guess when that will be.
Many use Christian prophecy to say that the end is just around the corner. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins created a cottage industry doing this with the “Left Behind” books, movies, and other products based on one interpretation of Christian end times.
Recently there has been even more attention paid to the Mayan calendar which ends with the winter solstice of 2012. Between the History Channel, the Learning Channel, the Discovery Channel, and a major movie depicting human struggle against natural disasters of terrifying proportion; the attention paid to what happens when it happens in this prophetic scenario is very fashionable, and very profitable.
So Jesus teaches that there are end times, and they will be ushered in tragically. The disciples were warned that this was just the beginning; this agony was simply the pangs of a mother preparing to give birth. This is the Braxton Hicks of prophecy fulfillment. This is the false labor, just the pangs. This isn’t even the real thing. This agony is just how creation prepares itself for the coming birth of the new age. But there is something very interesting about this prophecy, very interesting indeed.
Remember if you will from our reading, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple. The devastation of this temple would be so great that not one stone would be left upon another. We’re not talking about cinder blocks here either; we’re talking about great vast dressed stones. To destroy the temple would take a tremendous effort. The destruction of the temple would take considerable time and effort.
Not only would it take great physical effort to tear down the temple, it would take great political, military, and general human power to tear it down. The Romans had a very “live and let live” attitude toward other cultures and religious faiths in the empire; as long as there was civil rest and as long as the tribute was paid. When those bridges got crossed, whether by political upheaval or taxes not making their way across the Mediterranean, the army moved. It moved swiftly, or as swiftly as it could given the information and travel technologies of the day; and it moved brutally. Again, these folks didn’t invent crucifixion, but they took it to a place no one could have imagined.
So for this prophecy to come about, there would be years of minor insurrections. There would be little pockets of resistance. There would be some warnings before the whip came down, and when the whip came, it would take a little longer to get there than it would take for a B-1 bomber to leave Fort Leonard Wood and get to the Middle East, and it came with a vengeance.
Ultimately, the utter destruction of the temple and the nation of Israel, this destruction prophesied by Jesus in our reading today, came to fruition in 70 AD in a series of horrible and dramatic battles ending with the siege at Masada.
Now, what makes this prophecy interesting is that according to biblical scholars the book of Mark, the first of the recorded gospels, was written sometime between 65 and 75 AD. What I’m saying is that this prophecy was written as the events of the day were unfolding toward the destruction of the temple. They might even have been written after they unfolded. I guess the point I’m making here is that it’s pretty easy to write accurate prophecy while they are unfolding. It’s even easier to do afterward.
It’s easy to prophesy something that has all ready happened, and I say to you today that these events continue to happen. Prophesy, and this prophesy in particular is being fulfilled everyday. The local examples I listed earlier point toward this prophesy. The items from twenty to thirty years ago point to this prophesy. We can count natural disasters; earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes, tornadoes and the like. We can include the terror of the World Trade Center and the rest of the 9/11 attacks. When we do this, we can imagine that this is how some peoples live everyday in the shadow of their enemies.
This knowledge about the history of this reading can give us a feeling like the whole thing is anticlimactic. What’s prophecy if the events have all ready happened? What good is a warning of events that have all ready come to pass? What’s so important about Jesus sharing knowledge that was all ready known? The answer is this: What is important is not the prophecy, what is important is first how Jesus responded to the prophecy and then how we respond to Jesus.
In verses four and five, the brothers ask the Lord, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished.” Again, the disciples are not so unlike us and we are not so unlike them. When offered the news of prophecy, they wanted to be able to identify when the signs would be fulfilled.
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the “now, but not yet” view of our holy lives. How we live in the light of the kingdom of God, but because of the very nature of sin, the kingdom is not come, at least not yet. This “now, but not yet” is another way to express the fulfillment of this end times prophecy. Surely, by any estimation of this prophecy, based on the signs Jesus shared with his disciples, we live in end times. But this fact, this knowledge cannot lead us to say that tomorrow will not come, not yet.
As true as it is to say these prophecies were coming true in the day of the Lord, it is as true today. The signs are all around, so how did Jesus answer their question about the signs of the times? Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray.”
Did you notice what Jesus did there? He doesn’t answer their question. They want to know when, he offers something else; he gives them something even more useful than the signs of the end times. He warns them not to be led astray. And in this “now, but not yet” of end times, there are opportunities aplenty to be led astray.
Jesus doesn’t seem to care if we know the day when there will be no more tomorrows. If that mattered most, surely he would have shared that with his disciples. There are more important fish to fry. So instead, Jesus shares something more important, the dire warning that in a world that is so ripe with sin that it can’t seem to get worse, until it does, we must beware that we are not mislead.
You see, Jesus is the sign. Many will come to lead us astray, they will say, “I am he,” and they are not “He.” The glory of how this is written in the ancient Greek texts is that there is a better way to translate this phrase, this “I am he.” The simpler translation would read, “Many will come in my name and say “I AM.” The way Jesus said this little phrase; he invoked the Greek version of the holiest of Hebrew words, the name of God.
In a world where the kingdom of God is here and now, but not here and not yet; in a world where by the signs of sin the end is here and now, but not here and not yet, we are not called to interpret the signs. We are called to live in the light. We are called to move from the alienation of this world to the divine community ruled by Christ. We are called to move from the dark to the light. We are called to move from slavery to freedom. We are called to move from fear to liberty and assurance of eternal life. For Christians, it is Jesus and his message of salvation by grace through faith which is the sign of all times.
Pete Seeger and Lee Hays wrote the song “If I Had a Hammer.”[2] It ends with this refrain:
Well, I’ve got a hammer,
And I’ve got a bell,
And I’ve got a song to sing,
All over this land.
It’s the hammer of justice,
It’s the bell of freedom,
It’s the song about love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
Thanks be to God for the hammer and the bell and the song which we are to hammer and ring and sing. It is when we hammer, ring, and sing the songs of God’s love and freedom and salvation by grace through faith that the word and the kingdom reach further into this world, this world which is so sin sick. When we do this, the tide of these unholy signs is stemmed that no one will be led astray.
[1] CNN.com, Fort Hood suspect charged with murder, http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/12/fort.hood.investigation/index.html, retrieved November 14, 2009.
[2] Seeger, Pete and Hays, Lee, “If I Had a Hammer.” Warner Bros. Records, 1962.
1 Samuel 1:4-20
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hebrews 10:11-14; 19-25
Mark 13:1-8
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I read the news today. What an amazingly depraved world we live in. In a little less than a year, our Mayor was cited twice and served jail time twice for driving while impaired and possession of marijuana. A noted local attorney was arrested on so many drug related charges that her bond was set at $50,000.00; and the only reason it wasn’t $100,000.00 was because she agreed to immediately enter a drug rehabilitation program. Chris Helmlinger was found in a shallow grave because someone wanted to steal his identity. All they wanted his identity, his name and his numbers, so they took his life.
It was less than ten days ago that Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed thirteen people at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, the largest mass murder ever on a domestic military base.[1] This happened just eleven days shy of the anniversary of another notorious mass murder, this too in Killeen.
Eighteen years ago tomorrow, George Jo Hennard drove his pickup through the front window of the Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen. Then after shooting and killing twenty-three and wounding twenty others he turned his weapon on himself. This was the deadliest shooting spree in America, until the Virginia Tech shootings not eighteen months ago.
Last night CNN showed a special on the survivors of the Jonestown massacre. Nearly a thousand died and barely thirty survived the horrific mass murder/suicide which introduced into the American conscience the expression “drink the Kool-Aid.”
As for me, I don’t think the question “what kind of sick, twisted world is this?” should ever be asked. It always seems to me that just as soon as it’s asked, the answer rears its ugly head getting more and more grotesque.
In my opinion, and your mileage may vary, I don’t think the world is really any worse than it was in biblical times. Some of the things we read about in scripture’s historical books are just as sick and twisted as anything I have just described. The one thing that makes us really different is that we are bigger, stronger, and faster than our biblical counterparts. We’ve become the “Six-Million-Dollar-Man” of sin. Add to this the ready access to information which has increased exponentially since Guttenberg invented the printing press, and we may not be worse. But if it seems that way to you, I won’t press the point.
Jesus told his disciples that the temple will fall, not one stone will be left upon another, all will be thrown down. Later, when asked in private, Jesus warned the brothers, James and John, Peter and Andrew, that they will hear of wars and rumors of wars. They were warned that nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. They were warned of earthquakes and famine.
The signs are there, the signs are alive and well. A Google search with the terms “end times” returns over 262,000,000 hits in under one-eighth of a second. Yes, Jesus warns that end times are coming and there are a whole lot of people who are trying to guess when that will be.
Many use Christian prophecy to say that the end is just around the corner. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins created a cottage industry doing this with the “Left Behind” books, movies, and other products based on one interpretation of Christian end times.
Recently there has been even more attention paid to the Mayan calendar which ends with the winter solstice of 2012. Between the History Channel, the Learning Channel, the Discovery Channel, and a major movie depicting human struggle against natural disasters of terrifying proportion; the attention paid to what happens when it happens in this prophetic scenario is very fashionable, and very profitable.
So Jesus teaches that there are end times, and they will be ushered in tragically. The disciples were warned that this was just the beginning; this agony was simply the pangs of a mother preparing to give birth. This is the Braxton Hicks of prophecy fulfillment. This is the false labor, just the pangs. This isn’t even the real thing. This agony is just how creation prepares itself for the coming birth of the new age. But there is something very interesting about this prophecy, very interesting indeed.
Remember if you will from our reading, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple. The devastation of this temple would be so great that not one stone would be left upon another. We’re not talking about cinder blocks here either; we’re talking about great vast dressed stones. To destroy the temple would take a tremendous effort. The destruction of the temple would take considerable time and effort.
Not only would it take great physical effort to tear down the temple, it would take great political, military, and general human power to tear it down. The Romans had a very “live and let live” attitude toward other cultures and religious faiths in the empire; as long as there was civil rest and as long as the tribute was paid. When those bridges got crossed, whether by political upheaval or taxes not making their way across the Mediterranean, the army moved. It moved swiftly, or as swiftly as it could given the information and travel technologies of the day; and it moved brutally. Again, these folks didn’t invent crucifixion, but they took it to a place no one could have imagined.
So for this prophecy to come about, there would be years of minor insurrections. There would be little pockets of resistance. There would be some warnings before the whip came down, and when the whip came, it would take a little longer to get there than it would take for a B-1 bomber to leave Fort Leonard Wood and get to the Middle East, and it came with a vengeance.
Ultimately, the utter destruction of the temple and the nation of Israel, this destruction prophesied by Jesus in our reading today, came to fruition in 70 AD in a series of horrible and dramatic battles ending with the siege at Masada.
Now, what makes this prophecy interesting is that according to biblical scholars the book of Mark, the first of the recorded gospels, was written sometime between 65 and 75 AD. What I’m saying is that this prophecy was written as the events of the day were unfolding toward the destruction of the temple. They might even have been written after they unfolded. I guess the point I’m making here is that it’s pretty easy to write accurate prophecy while they are unfolding. It’s even easier to do afterward.
It’s easy to prophesy something that has all ready happened, and I say to you today that these events continue to happen. Prophesy, and this prophesy in particular is being fulfilled everyday. The local examples I listed earlier point toward this prophesy. The items from twenty to thirty years ago point to this prophesy. We can count natural disasters; earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes, tornadoes and the like. We can include the terror of the World Trade Center and the rest of the 9/11 attacks. When we do this, we can imagine that this is how some peoples live everyday in the shadow of their enemies.
This knowledge about the history of this reading can give us a feeling like the whole thing is anticlimactic. What’s prophecy if the events have all ready happened? What good is a warning of events that have all ready come to pass? What’s so important about Jesus sharing knowledge that was all ready known? The answer is this: What is important is not the prophecy, what is important is first how Jesus responded to the prophecy and then how we respond to Jesus.
In verses four and five, the brothers ask the Lord, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished.” Again, the disciples are not so unlike us and we are not so unlike them. When offered the news of prophecy, they wanted to be able to identify when the signs would be fulfilled.
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the “now, but not yet” view of our holy lives. How we live in the light of the kingdom of God, but because of the very nature of sin, the kingdom is not come, at least not yet. This “now, but not yet” is another way to express the fulfillment of this end times prophecy. Surely, by any estimation of this prophecy, based on the signs Jesus shared with his disciples, we live in end times. But this fact, this knowledge cannot lead us to say that tomorrow will not come, not yet.
As true as it is to say these prophecies were coming true in the day of the Lord, it is as true today. The signs are all around, so how did Jesus answer their question about the signs of the times? Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray.”
Did you notice what Jesus did there? He doesn’t answer their question. They want to know when, he offers something else; he gives them something even more useful than the signs of the end times. He warns them not to be led astray. And in this “now, but not yet” of end times, there are opportunities aplenty to be led astray.
Jesus doesn’t seem to care if we know the day when there will be no more tomorrows. If that mattered most, surely he would have shared that with his disciples. There are more important fish to fry. So instead, Jesus shares something more important, the dire warning that in a world that is so ripe with sin that it can’t seem to get worse, until it does, we must beware that we are not mislead.
You see, Jesus is the sign. Many will come to lead us astray, they will say, “I am he,” and they are not “He.” The glory of how this is written in the ancient Greek texts is that there is a better way to translate this phrase, this “I am he.” The simpler translation would read, “Many will come in my name and say “I AM.” The way Jesus said this little phrase; he invoked the Greek version of the holiest of Hebrew words, the name of God.
In a world where the kingdom of God is here and now, but not here and not yet; in a world where by the signs of sin the end is here and now, but not here and not yet, we are not called to interpret the signs. We are called to live in the light. We are called to move from the alienation of this world to the divine community ruled by Christ. We are called to move from the dark to the light. We are called to move from slavery to freedom. We are called to move from fear to liberty and assurance of eternal life. For Christians, it is Jesus and his message of salvation by grace through faith which is the sign of all times.
Pete Seeger and Lee Hays wrote the song “If I Had a Hammer.”[2] It ends with this refrain:
Well, I’ve got a hammer,
And I’ve got a bell,
And I’ve got a song to sing,
All over this land.
It’s the hammer of justice,
It’s the bell of freedom,
It’s the song about love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
Thanks be to God for the hammer and the bell and the song which we are to hammer and ring and sing. It is when we hammer, ring, and sing the songs of God’s love and freedom and salvation by grace through faith that the word and the kingdom reach further into this world, this world which is so sin sick. When we do this, the tide of these unholy signs is stemmed that no one will be led astray.
[1] CNN.com, Fort Hood suspect charged with murder, http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/12/fort.hood.investigation/index.html, retrieved November 14, 2009.
[2] Seeger, Pete and Hays, Lee, “If I Had a Hammer.” Warner Bros. Records, 1962.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Two Stories About Discipleship
This sermon was heard at the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Columbia, Missouri on Sunday November 8, 2009, the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
One of Stanley Kubrick’s last movies was 1987’s “Full Metal Jacket.” The film follows a squad of Marines through basic training at Parris Island and depicts the experiences of two of these men in Vietnam, including the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Huế. What I find interesting about Kubrick’s treatment is the way he connected two such disjointed stories. Yes, the movement from training to combat is nothing unusual, but the disconnect between South Carolina and Southeast Asia in one pivotal scene doesn’t move the story from one phase to the next, it takes it from one world to another.
In a way, we have the same thing with our reading from the Gospel, “The Warning About the Scribes” and “The Widow’s Offering”[1] Yes, the people in both stories are largely the same, yes we are in the same place, and even in the same time, but there is a disconnect between them which show us completely different worlds.
“Beware the scribes,” teaches Jesus, “who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!” This sounds like an indictment against all of the scribes, but just a few verses earlier Jesus tells one scribe that he is not far from the Kingdom of God.[2] A better expression of this passage would be, “Beware the scribes, particularly the scribes who like to walk around in long robes…” and so on.
The good news in this statement is that Jesus does not indict all of the scribes as greedy and evil. He specifically separates the ones who walk around like they are someone more special than we are and more important than they are. They are the ones who like to eat the upper crust,[3] especially when someone else is buying dinner. Beware of the scribes who are attracted to the things they do not deserve.
Beware them because they will take you for all you are worth. Sure, they will do what they are supposed to do; they will recite their prayers and even recite them in public. After all, it’s impossible to attract attention for doing good works if they are done in private. And beware the Scribes who eat well because they eat like a plague of locusts. “They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.”
This part of today’s reading could not be more straight forward. Jesus is speaking plainly. Jesus shows us how revoltingly the greedy Scribes behave, pointing out their absurdity. To see one of these Scribes walking around the marketplace in long robes would be exactly like seeing me walking down Providence or Broadway in my robe and stole. How presumptuous.
Told in the introduction to one of my favorite books from one of my favorite professors, this story shows us another way to see these scribes:
In a recent class discussion, a student mentioned a workshop she had attended in which an “image consultant” spoke to the gathered ministers (or church professionals as they referred to themselves). The consultant pointed up to the need for clergy to project a positive professional image. She told them that, because they are made in the image of God, they should buy only the best clothes, jewelry and accessories, and should make every effort to look as chic and smart as possible. After the student related her (all too true) story, I paused for a very long time. I was frankly appalled and, momentarily at a loss for words.
The students sat as the silence hung heavy around us. Finally, I said: “I guess what I’m trying to picture in my mind is this: how should we look if we are supposed to reflect the image of the God who has revealed himself to us in the tormented shape of a Jewish man named Jesus, crucified on a city dump and discarded by the powers of his world?”[4]
I am sure that this image consultant had the best interests of church professionals in mind when she gave this advice to those who paid good money to hear it. Unfortunately, one way to interpret her advice is that church professionals are to behave like the Scribes; wearing $2,000.00 suits, walking around the marketplace, and being greeted with adoration by the little people.
We do not pass from the temple without another story, the tale of the widow’s offering. Where the first part of our reading was offered at the temple for all who were there with ears to hear, this one is told specifically and directly to his disciples.
Many rich people were putting large sums of money into the treasury. The way the treasury was set up there were large horn shaped funnels that led to metal boxes where the worshipper placed their offering.
When someone put a large offering into the horn, it caused a great racket. To our ears it would sound more like a slot machine paying off a big jackpot at the casino in Boonville than the offering. But with a flourish, everyone within earshot would be able to discern who the rich folks are, and how extravagant their gift is. So when the widow placed two small copper coins in the treasury, hardly anyone took notice at all. Jesus took notice though.
She did not give much; she was not able to give much. Scripture tells us though that she gave all she had to live on. Another way to translate this passage is to say “She gave her whole life.” She gave her whole being and all of her existence, not just all of her cash.
She gave her whole life…so was Jesus praising her for her faith or was Jesus condemning a system which demanded every last thing from the poorest, weakest members of the community?
It would be consistent with the first half of the reading for Jesus to condemn the system. Jesus lambastes the Scribes for being holier than thou. He warns the people about how some of them flaunt their roles in society; taking advantage of their status for personal gain. I would not be surprised if Jesus was pointing there while praising the widow who gave her whole life. Jesus had a habit of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
The Christian Century magazine recently ran the story of an elderly woman who was a client of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.[5] She needed just a little more money than her social security and house cleaning job provided. Between her niece and a shady sub-prime lender, she and her house went from the frying pan into the fire.
The vulnerable and overly trusting homeowner sitting on a ton of equity, the nice mortgage broker worming into the homeowner’s life, the greedy family member helping things along, the high up-front fees, the cash payment to cushion the deal, the risky mortgage products and the broker schooled by a lender’s rep on how to push them.
The lender knew the elderly woman wouldn’t be able to handle the new level of debt, especially since she owed back taxes and back water bills on the house. There were also a couple of judgments against the property so the broker knew that this new level of debt would soon become impossible to repay.
This paragraph is found near the end of the article:
The chief culprits in the subprime lending crisis are the brokers, lenders, ratings agencies and investment banks that set up the system and pushed it beyond its breaking point, together with the policy makers and regulators who ignored warning signs and failed to apply the brakes.
A system pushed beyond its breaking point becomes the scourge of the poor and widowed. People swiftly move from the margin of society completely off the page. Jesus warns this happens and will continue to happen. He also warns “they who devour widows’ houses will receive the greater condemnation.”
If you are able to give out of abundance, then by all means, give generously. Remember the Lord who has blessed you and return that blessing so that it may do God’s work through the church. And yes, hold the church accountable. For all of us, give in humility; don’t sound a ruckus with the treasury. Give whether it is from your wealth or your poverty. Jesus cherishes the widow’s offering, surely he does. It’s surely just as true that he detests the way the rich and powerful take advantage of the poor and widowed.
An example of how these interpretations meet is found in the Paramount Pictures release “Leap of Faith”[6] starring Steve Martin as the Reverend Jonas Nightengale, an “evangelist” who is far more con man than man of God. When one of the Kenworth trucks in his caravan breaks down in Rustwater, Kansas, he makes the choice to turn lemons into lemonade by holding his revival there, instead of in Topeka as scheduled.
Like any good con man, he finds the greatest need in town and exploits it. Rustwater is in a five year drought and if it doesn’t rain this weekend, the crop will be ruined again this year. On the first day of the revival, before the meeting, Jonas walks around town inviting everyone, promising miracles and wonders.
At the end of the movie, the sick are healed and the lame walk in Rustwater. Everyone praises God and says halleluiah. They have seen the signs and wonders and they give glory to God. But these healings are not the miracles.
As Jonas leaves the revival tent for the last time, he is met with the vision of a tent city on the revival grounds. People are camping, and sharing food. In their poverty, they share the abundance of God. A community founded in Christ rises out of the ash of Jonas’ deception. This is a miracle.
As Jonas hitchhikes out of town leaving his old life behind, it begins to rain. The people of Rustwater declare it a miracle, rain heaven sent. But this is not the miracle either.
The miracle is the redemption of a man in Jesus Christ. The miracle is in the relationship God initiates with creation and humanity. The miracle is Jonas’ response to the Almighty God.
Jonas Nightengale comes to town as the Scribe demanding every last coin from everybody in Rustwater, Kansas. He leaves Rustwater seeing the wonders of the Lord at work in the fellowship of God’s people. He leaves the spoils of a greedy scribe behind. He leaves a believer. This is a miracle.
As this movie ends, there are no more victims, only those who have experienced and responded to the grace of God.
These two stories from our gospel reading are about more than giving, more than about what we call stewardship. To view stewardship as the “business of the church” is too narrow; a better word is discipleship. Discipleship is how we respond to the grace of God. The primary concern of discipleship is to translate legitimate Christian speech into vital Christian action. We must respond to the gifts of the sovereign God as their trustee, not their creator. Discipleship extends beyond our relationship with wealth to our relationship with God, the Word, and one another.
As the children of God and the body of Christ, our vocation, our call is not to be like the wicked Scribes who seek the best seats in town. We are to give our time, talent and treasure in the service of God and to the people of God. We are to give in humility. We are warned; regardless of the era to beware the Scribes. The Lord does not call us to create victims or to be victims in God’s name. We are to be humble, and live like the widow; willing to give our lives for the body of Christ.
[1] Heading titles in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Mark 12:38-40 and 12:41-44 respectively.
[2] Mark 12:34
[3] The first draft said “high on the hog,” but even living in the “Home of the Razorbacks that just wasn’t kosher.
[4] Jinkins, Michael, Transformational Ministry, Church Leadership and the Way of the Cross. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2002, page xi.
[5] Lindsey, Daniel P. “Foreclosing on Mabel.” The Christian Century, August 11, 2009, pages 30-33.
[6] Paramount Pictures presents a Michael Manheim/David V. Picker production of a Richard Pearce film, Leap of Faith, 1992.
Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
One of Stanley Kubrick’s last movies was 1987’s “Full Metal Jacket.” The film follows a squad of Marines through basic training at Parris Island and depicts the experiences of two of these men in Vietnam, including the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Huế. What I find interesting about Kubrick’s treatment is the way he connected two such disjointed stories. Yes, the movement from training to combat is nothing unusual, but the disconnect between South Carolina and Southeast Asia in one pivotal scene doesn’t move the story from one phase to the next, it takes it from one world to another.
In a way, we have the same thing with our reading from the Gospel, “The Warning About the Scribes” and “The Widow’s Offering”[1] Yes, the people in both stories are largely the same, yes we are in the same place, and even in the same time, but there is a disconnect between them which show us completely different worlds.
“Beware the scribes,” teaches Jesus, “who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!” This sounds like an indictment against all of the scribes, but just a few verses earlier Jesus tells one scribe that he is not far from the Kingdom of God.[2] A better expression of this passage would be, “Beware the scribes, particularly the scribes who like to walk around in long robes…” and so on.
The good news in this statement is that Jesus does not indict all of the scribes as greedy and evil. He specifically separates the ones who walk around like they are someone more special than we are and more important than they are. They are the ones who like to eat the upper crust,[3] especially when someone else is buying dinner. Beware of the scribes who are attracted to the things they do not deserve.
Beware them because they will take you for all you are worth. Sure, they will do what they are supposed to do; they will recite their prayers and even recite them in public. After all, it’s impossible to attract attention for doing good works if they are done in private. And beware the Scribes who eat well because they eat like a plague of locusts. “They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.”
This part of today’s reading could not be more straight forward. Jesus is speaking plainly. Jesus shows us how revoltingly the greedy Scribes behave, pointing out their absurdity. To see one of these Scribes walking around the marketplace in long robes would be exactly like seeing me walking down Providence or Broadway in my robe and stole. How presumptuous.
Told in the introduction to one of my favorite books from one of my favorite professors, this story shows us another way to see these scribes:
In a recent class discussion, a student mentioned a workshop she had attended in which an “image consultant” spoke to the gathered ministers (or church professionals as they referred to themselves). The consultant pointed up to the need for clergy to project a positive professional image. She told them that, because they are made in the image of God, they should buy only the best clothes, jewelry and accessories, and should make every effort to look as chic and smart as possible. After the student related her (all too true) story, I paused for a very long time. I was frankly appalled and, momentarily at a loss for words.
The students sat as the silence hung heavy around us. Finally, I said: “I guess what I’m trying to picture in my mind is this: how should we look if we are supposed to reflect the image of the God who has revealed himself to us in the tormented shape of a Jewish man named Jesus, crucified on a city dump and discarded by the powers of his world?”[4]
I am sure that this image consultant had the best interests of church professionals in mind when she gave this advice to those who paid good money to hear it. Unfortunately, one way to interpret her advice is that church professionals are to behave like the Scribes; wearing $2,000.00 suits, walking around the marketplace, and being greeted with adoration by the little people.
We do not pass from the temple without another story, the tale of the widow’s offering. Where the first part of our reading was offered at the temple for all who were there with ears to hear, this one is told specifically and directly to his disciples.
Many rich people were putting large sums of money into the treasury. The way the treasury was set up there were large horn shaped funnels that led to metal boxes where the worshipper placed their offering.
When someone put a large offering into the horn, it caused a great racket. To our ears it would sound more like a slot machine paying off a big jackpot at the casino in Boonville than the offering. But with a flourish, everyone within earshot would be able to discern who the rich folks are, and how extravagant their gift is. So when the widow placed two small copper coins in the treasury, hardly anyone took notice at all. Jesus took notice though.
She did not give much; she was not able to give much. Scripture tells us though that she gave all she had to live on. Another way to translate this passage is to say “She gave her whole life.” She gave her whole being and all of her existence, not just all of her cash.
She gave her whole life…so was Jesus praising her for her faith or was Jesus condemning a system which demanded every last thing from the poorest, weakest members of the community?
It would be consistent with the first half of the reading for Jesus to condemn the system. Jesus lambastes the Scribes for being holier than thou. He warns the people about how some of them flaunt their roles in society; taking advantage of their status for personal gain. I would not be surprised if Jesus was pointing there while praising the widow who gave her whole life. Jesus had a habit of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
The Christian Century magazine recently ran the story of an elderly woman who was a client of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.[5] She needed just a little more money than her social security and house cleaning job provided. Between her niece and a shady sub-prime lender, she and her house went from the frying pan into the fire.
The vulnerable and overly trusting homeowner sitting on a ton of equity, the nice mortgage broker worming into the homeowner’s life, the greedy family member helping things along, the high up-front fees, the cash payment to cushion the deal, the risky mortgage products and the broker schooled by a lender’s rep on how to push them.
The lender knew the elderly woman wouldn’t be able to handle the new level of debt, especially since she owed back taxes and back water bills on the house. There were also a couple of judgments against the property so the broker knew that this new level of debt would soon become impossible to repay.
This paragraph is found near the end of the article:
The chief culprits in the subprime lending crisis are the brokers, lenders, ratings agencies and investment banks that set up the system and pushed it beyond its breaking point, together with the policy makers and regulators who ignored warning signs and failed to apply the brakes.
A system pushed beyond its breaking point becomes the scourge of the poor and widowed. People swiftly move from the margin of society completely off the page. Jesus warns this happens and will continue to happen. He also warns “they who devour widows’ houses will receive the greater condemnation.”
If you are able to give out of abundance, then by all means, give generously. Remember the Lord who has blessed you and return that blessing so that it may do God’s work through the church. And yes, hold the church accountable. For all of us, give in humility; don’t sound a ruckus with the treasury. Give whether it is from your wealth or your poverty. Jesus cherishes the widow’s offering, surely he does. It’s surely just as true that he detests the way the rich and powerful take advantage of the poor and widowed.
An example of how these interpretations meet is found in the Paramount Pictures release “Leap of Faith”[6] starring Steve Martin as the Reverend Jonas Nightengale, an “evangelist” who is far more con man than man of God. When one of the Kenworth trucks in his caravan breaks down in Rustwater, Kansas, he makes the choice to turn lemons into lemonade by holding his revival there, instead of in Topeka as scheduled.
Like any good con man, he finds the greatest need in town and exploits it. Rustwater is in a five year drought and if it doesn’t rain this weekend, the crop will be ruined again this year. On the first day of the revival, before the meeting, Jonas walks around town inviting everyone, promising miracles and wonders.
At the end of the movie, the sick are healed and the lame walk in Rustwater. Everyone praises God and says halleluiah. They have seen the signs and wonders and they give glory to God. But these healings are not the miracles.
As Jonas leaves the revival tent for the last time, he is met with the vision of a tent city on the revival grounds. People are camping, and sharing food. In their poverty, they share the abundance of God. A community founded in Christ rises out of the ash of Jonas’ deception. This is a miracle.
As Jonas hitchhikes out of town leaving his old life behind, it begins to rain. The people of Rustwater declare it a miracle, rain heaven sent. But this is not the miracle either.
The miracle is the redemption of a man in Jesus Christ. The miracle is in the relationship God initiates with creation and humanity. The miracle is Jonas’ response to the Almighty God.
Jonas Nightengale comes to town as the Scribe demanding every last coin from everybody in Rustwater, Kansas. He leaves Rustwater seeing the wonders of the Lord at work in the fellowship of God’s people. He leaves the spoils of a greedy scribe behind. He leaves a believer. This is a miracle.
As this movie ends, there are no more victims, only those who have experienced and responded to the grace of God.
These two stories from our gospel reading are about more than giving, more than about what we call stewardship. To view stewardship as the “business of the church” is too narrow; a better word is discipleship. Discipleship is how we respond to the grace of God. The primary concern of discipleship is to translate legitimate Christian speech into vital Christian action. We must respond to the gifts of the sovereign God as their trustee, not their creator. Discipleship extends beyond our relationship with wealth to our relationship with God, the Word, and one another.
As the children of God and the body of Christ, our vocation, our call is not to be like the wicked Scribes who seek the best seats in town. We are to give our time, talent and treasure in the service of God and to the people of God. We are to give in humility. We are warned; regardless of the era to beware the Scribes. The Lord does not call us to create victims or to be victims in God’s name. We are to be humble, and live like the widow; willing to give our lives for the body of Christ.
[1] Heading titles in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Mark 12:38-40 and 12:41-44 respectively.
[2] Mark 12:34
[3] The first draft said “high on the hog,” but even living in the “Home of the Razorbacks that just wasn’t kosher.
[4] Jinkins, Michael, Transformational Ministry, Church Leadership and the Way of the Cross. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2002, page xi.
[5] Lindsey, Daniel P. “Foreclosing on Mabel.” The Christian Century, August 11, 2009, pages 30-33.
[6] Paramount Pictures presents a Michael Manheim/David V. Picker production of a Richard Pearce film, Leap of Faith, 1992.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Jesus Weeps
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 1, 2009, All Saints' Day.
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Last week, our gospel reading was the glorious story of Blind Bartimaeus, a man who was shunned by the people because of his blindness. Bartimaeus was a beggar on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. He made a living being a nuisance to travelers. He lived a dirty life in a dangerous place on the margins of society.
Jesus called him, beckoned Bartimaeus to come to him. Leaving his old life behind with his cloak, Bartimaeus sprang up and came to Jesus. Bartimaeus receives two gifts, the first is his sight. The second gift he receives is the unconditional presence of the Lord. Bartimaeus is now and forever in the presence of the Lord. Every time we tell this story it is true. Every time we tell this story Bartimaeus is with Jesus. Every time we tell this story it is as true in the eternal sense, now as much as then, Bartimaeus is with Jesus.
This is an example of what we are promised in the words of the prophet. Isaiah prophesies, Isaiah promises:
Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
This is the LORD for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
This is an example of what we are promised in the words of John the Revelator.
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”
These promises are wonderful, and they are glorious. They are lived by Bartimaeus who lives in the words of Isaiah, walking beside Jesus, his tears wiped from his face. His disgrace nothing but a distant memory the moment that Jesus gives him the two greatest gifts he can receive, sight in his eyes and God’s own presence in his life now and forever.
The sorrow and mourning Bartimaeus knew were wiped from his eyes with the coming promise of the Revelation that the first things have passed away. It is the next thing, life in the presence of the Lord that is now his by the grace of Christ Jesus.
The lesson of Bartimaeus is revealed in the promises made in prophecy. They remind us that God is in this world, the Lord is with us.
We know, we have faith, it has been revealed that there will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain. The entire old order of things has passed away. The things that cause us to feel grief and pain released like dust in the wind.
This is where we can run into some trouble. It’s not that this isn’t true, it is. But just as it is true that the victory of Christ was won on the cross through his blood; there is still pain and grief and sorrow in this world.
Eugene Peterson wrote this for the introduction to Michael Card’s book, “A Sacred Sorrow, Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament.”
A number of years ago my mother died in Montana. My brother and sister, our spouses and children, gathered and prepared for the service of worship in which we would place our grief for her death and gratitude for her life before God. As the first-born I was appointed to conduct the funeral…I began reading Scriptures—several psalms, Isaiah’s strong words of comfort, Jesus’ parting words to His disciples, Paul’s archi-tec-tonic Romans 8, John’s final vision of heaven. I had done this scores of times over many years and have always loved doing it, saying again these powerful, honest words that give such enormous dignity to death and our tears. While reading, the air now thin between time and eternity, without warning lament surged within me. I tried to keep my composure and then just let it go…
The benediction pronounced, I ducked quickly into a small room just off the chancel. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. My twenty-two-year-old daughter slipped in beside me. We sat together, quiet and weeping our own “sacred sorrow.” And then a man I’d never seen before entered and sat down. He put his arm across my shoulder and spoke some preacherish clichés in a preacherish tone. Then, mercifully, he left. I said to my daughter, “Karen, I hope I’ve never done that to anybody.” She said, “Oh, Daddy, I don’t think you have ever done that.” I hope not.[1]
When we use these words of assurance to remember the promises of God that’s one thing, but when we use them as magic words to calm someone down so our pain is relieved, well, that’s the worst thing we can do.
There is an ancient theological concept that was greatly influenced by an even more ancient philosophical concept known as apatheia; it’s the root of our word apathy. The concept of apatheia allows us to define “God as one whose perfection leaves God unaffected by the contingencies and circumstances of the created order.”[2] John Calvin used this principle as a way to explain that the emotions attributed to God like the ones in this passage from John are the just way Scripture expresses what is truly incomprehensible in a way we can begin to understand.
To paraphrase this using the slang of a few years back: Divine emotion? It’s a God thing, you wouldn’t understand.
As for me, I don’t really understand that concept as it pertains to the Lord, and particularly not as it pertains to the fully human and fully divine Jesus of Nazareth. We read that because of the death of his dear friend Lazarus, Jesus is deeply disturbed in spirit. We read that Jesus is deeply moved. We read later again that Jesus is deeply disturbed. The Jews could even see that Jesus deeply loved Lazarus.
We read that Jesus began to weep.[3] Honestly though, I prefer the traditional translation of this verse, Jesus wept. Jesus was so overwhelmed that he wept at the loss of his friend. Jesus knew what he would do, and he knew what he would do for the glory of God for the sake of the crowd standing there; so that they may believe that it was the Father who sent the Son. Still, Jesus wept.
Jesus knew the pain. Jesus knew the grief. Jesus knew the sorrow. Jesus was overwhelmed.
Jesus knew the prophecy of Isaiah. Jesus knew the tears of the mourners would be wiped away. Jesus knew the extravagant grace and peace which comes from the glory seat of the Lord God Almighty would be known by his work.
Jesus knew the glory of the new heaven and the new earth; the glory made possible by the passing of the first heaven and the first earth. Jesus knew the glory of the holy city, the new Jerusalem. Jesus knew these things because he is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. Jesus knew all of this and more than we could ever hope or imagine.
And Jesus wept.
Today as we celebrate All Saints’ Day, we celebrate those who have gone before us in the faith. Today we celebrate the life of Elizabeth Beck who played organ and provided music for worship for this part of the Body of Christ. We celebrate the life of Leah Chapman who was taken from this world all too soon. We celebrate the life of Raphael Mabry, and we celebrate the life of my mother Mary Margaret. We celebrate the lives of all of those who have preceded us onto the glory of God. As we celebrate their lives, and the richness that fills our lives because of them, we too mourn. We shed a tear as we smile. We weep.
We are the recipients, the heirs of these glorious promises; promises of peace, promises of grace. We have a confidence in the prophecies and we have confidence in Christ. By Christ, the kingdom of God is here; the kingdom of God is now. Still, we know by the realities of sin and life that the kingdom is not yet fully here, it is not yet. There is sorrow and there is mourning. In this not yet, Jesus weeps. Jesus who knows the fulfillment of the promises weeps with Martha and Mary. And Jesus weeps with us too.
[1] Card, Michael, “A Sacred Sorrow, Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament.” Introduction by Eugene Peterson. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2005, pages 11-12.
[2] “Feasting on the Word.” David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, page 236.
[3] John 11:35, New Revised Standard Version. This is the version we use in worship.
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Last week, our gospel reading was the glorious story of Blind Bartimaeus, a man who was shunned by the people because of his blindness. Bartimaeus was a beggar on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. He made a living being a nuisance to travelers. He lived a dirty life in a dangerous place on the margins of society.
Jesus called him, beckoned Bartimaeus to come to him. Leaving his old life behind with his cloak, Bartimaeus sprang up and came to Jesus. Bartimaeus receives two gifts, the first is his sight. The second gift he receives is the unconditional presence of the Lord. Bartimaeus is now and forever in the presence of the Lord. Every time we tell this story it is true. Every time we tell this story Bartimaeus is with Jesus. Every time we tell this story it is as true in the eternal sense, now as much as then, Bartimaeus is with Jesus.
This is an example of what we are promised in the words of the prophet. Isaiah prophesies, Isaiah promises:
Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
This is the LORD for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
This is an example of what we are promised in the words of John the Revelator.
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”
These promises are wonderful, and they are glorious. They are lived by Bartimaeus who lives in the words of Isaiah, walking beside Jesus, his tears wiped from his face. His disgrace nothing but a distant memory the moment that Jesus gives him the two greatest gifts he can receive, sight in his eyes and God’s own presence in his life now and forever.
The sorrow and mourning Bartimaeus knew were wiped from his eyes with the coming promise of the Revelation that the first things have passed away. It is the next thing, life in the presence of the Lord that is now his by the grace of Christ Jesus.
The lesson of Bartimaeus is revealed in the promises made in prophecy. They remind us that God is in this world, the Lord is with us.
We know, we have faith, it has been revealed that there will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain. The entire old order of things has passed away. The things that cause us to feel grief and pain released like dust in the wind.
This is where we can run into some trouble. It’s not that this isn’t true, it is. But just as it is true that the victory of Christ was won on the cross through his blood; there is still pain and grief and sorrow in this world.
Eugene Peterson wrote this for the introduction to Michael Card’s book, “A Sacred Sorrow, Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament.”
A number of years ago my mother died in Montana. My brother and sister, our spouses and children, gathered and prepared for the service of worship in which we would place our grief for her death and gratitude for her life before God. As the first-born I was appointed to conduct the funeral…I began reading Scriptures—several psalms, Isaiah’s strong words of comfort, Jesus’ parting words to His disciples, Paul’s archi-tec-tonic Romans 8, John’s final vision of heaven. I had done this scores of times over many years and have always loved doing it, saying again these powerful, honest words that give such enormous dignity to death and our tears. While reading, the air now thin between time and eternity, without warning lament surged within me. I tried to keep my composure and then just let it go…
The benediction pronounced, I ducked quickly into a small room just off the chancel. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. My twenty-two-year-old daughter slipped in beside me. We sat together, quiet and weeping our own “sacred sorrow.” And then a man I’d never seen before entered and sat down. He put his arm across my shoulder and spoke some preacherish clichés in a preacherish tone. Then, mercifully, he left. I said to my daughter, “Karen, I hope I’ve never done that to anybody.” She said, “Oh, Daddy, I don’t think you have ever done that.” I hope not.[1]
When we use these words of assurance to remember the promises of God that’s one thing, but when we use them as magic words to calm someone down so our pain is relieved, well, that’s the worst thing we can do.
There is an ancient theological concept that was greatly influenced by an even more ancient philosophical concept known as apatheia; it’s the root of our word apathy. The concept of apatheia allows us to define “God as one whose perfection leaves God unaffected by the contingencies and circumstances of the created order.”[2] John Calvin used this principle as a way to explain that the emotions attributed to God like the ones in this passage from John are the just way Scripture expresses what is truly incomprehensible in a way we can begin to understand.
To paraphrase this using the slang of a few years back: Divine emotion? It’s a God thing, you wouldn’t understand.
As for me, I don’t really understand that concept as it pertains to the Lord, and particularly not as it pertains to the fully human and fully divine Jesus of Nazareth. We read that because of the death of his dear friend Lazarus, Jesus is deeply disturbed in spirit. We read that Jesus is deeply moved. We read later again that Jesus is deeply disturbed. The Jews could even see that Jesus deeply loved Lazarus.
We read that Jesus began to weep.[3] Honestly though, I prefer the traditional translation of this verse, Jesus wept. Jesus was so overwhelmed that he wept at the loss of his friend. Jesus knew what he would do, and he knew what he would do for the glory of God for the sake of the crowd standing there; so that they may believe that it was the Father who sent the Son. Still, Jesus wept.
Jesus knew the pain. Jesus knew the grief. Jesus knew the sorrow. Jesus was overwhelmed.
Jesus knew the prophecy of Isaiah. Jesus knew the tears of the mourners would be wiped away. Jesus knew the extravagant grace and peace which comes from the glory seat of the Lord God Almighty would be known by his work.
Jesus knew the glory of the new heaven and the new earth; the glory made possible by the passing of the first heaven and the first earth. Jesus knew the glory of the holy city, the new Jerusalem. Jesus knew these things because he is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. Jesus knew all of this and more than we could ever hope or imagine.
And Jesus wept.
Today as we celebrate All Saints’ Day, we celebrate those who have gone before us in the faith. Today we celebrate the life of Elizabeth Beck who played organ and provided music for worship for this part of the Body of Christ. We celebrate the life of Leah Chapman who was taken from this world all too soon. We celebrate the life of Raphael Mabry, and we celebrate the life of my mother Mary Margaret. We celebrate the lives of all of those who have preceded us onto the glory of God. As we celebrate their lives, and the richness that fills our lives because of them, we too mourn. We shed a tear as we smile. We weep.
We are the recipients, the heirs of these glorious promises; promises of peace, promises of grace. We have a confidence in the prophecies and we have confidence in Christ. By Christ, the kingdom of God is here; the kingdom of God is now. Still, we know by the realities of sin and life that the kingdom is not yet fully here, it is not yet. There is sorrow and there is mourning. In this not yet, Jesus weeps. Jesus who knows the fulfillment of the promises weeps with Martha and Mary. And Jesus weeps with us too.
[1] Card, Michael, “A Sacred Sorrow, Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament.” Introduction by Eugene Peterson. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2005, pages 11-12.
[2] “Feasting on the Word.” David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, page 236.
[3] John 11:35, New Revised Standard Version. This is the version we use in worship.
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